On September 14, Wizards of the Coast revealed a full deck list for its second MTG Warhammer 40k crossover Commander deck, The Ruinous Powers. This is a deck dedicated to the Warp-fuelled powers of the Dark Gods, so its theme and mechanics are stuffed with as much chaos as possible – including plenty of cascade options.
The Ruinous powers is a Grixis (blue, black, and red) Commander deck with 42 new cards. Chaos Warmaster Abaddon the Despoiler has the favour of all four Chaos gods, so he’s a natural choice for Commander. While there are plenty of reprints present in the deck, many of these slot perfectly into the grimdark sci-fi world of 40k – expect to see Assault Suit, Chaos Warp, and Temple of the False God.
A little of each Chaos god has gone into the deck. Nurgle can be found in his natural, swampy habitat thanks to the black cards in the deck, and Khorne’s bloodlust is shown off through red cards like Khârn the Betrayer and Knight Rampager, who simply have to attack if they’re able. The ever-changeable and hedonistic agendas of Tzeentch and Slaanesh are also represented in the blue and red cards, though blue doesn’t get quite as many cards to work with (whoever heard of control in chaos, after all?).
While the recently revealed deck list for Tyranid Swarm introduced a new keyword, cards in The Ruinous Powers deck often have abilities with individual, flavour-heavy names to give the deck the true 40k feel. One existing keyword that plays a big role is cascade. Abaddon can give spells cascade, as does the unpleasantly-named Sloppity Bilepiper. We’ve already seen Noise Marine comes with the cascade keyword attacked, and it’s also included the newly revealed card Let the Galaxy Burn.
Exiling cards to cast mana and returning them to your library in a random order injects a certain amount of chaos into your Commander deck, but Wizards hasn’t stopped there. Cards like Knight Rampager attack and damage a chosen player at random, while Chaos Defiler destroys nonland permanents (also chosen at random).
The full decklist can be found in the official deck reveal video (see below).
You can also stay up-to-date with spoilers from every deck in our MTG Warhammer crossover set guide. Or, for something not set in the grimdark future, check out our guide to the best MTG Commanders, like, ever.