Too many people abuse this silent agreement that lands should be left alone and go overboard by stapling strong effects and interactions in their land base, knowing people likely aren’t running the correct targeted removal to deal with it. Prevent that Villainous Wealth or Torment of Hailfire of reaching X = 15, don’t allow the voltron player to keep their Rogue’s Passage and get rid of that Urza’s Saga before it can tutor up an artifact.

Even without a voltron player at the table, when’s the last time you had a game without Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Shadowspear or any of the ‘Sword of’ cards getting played? Sure, their commander can have hexproof or shroud, but chances are high the equipment will not!

Exxaxl: It’s not like I’m trying to limit everyone to one spell a turn because I like them or anything…

Chief: Don’t.

I also noticed that Commander fan favorite Azusa, Lost but Seeking was conspicuously absent from the Kamigawa Ink Secret Lair. I guess she’s still lost out there somewhere.

I’d question the edibility and logistics of forcing an animated Ichor Wellspring into a cake tin, but I’m sure you can ask Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar on how to make that recipe work.

Energy Tap turns into quite a strong ritual in a color that’s not really known for playing this type of effect. Tapping your Torrential Gearhulk to help you overload a Cyclonic Rift feels amazing to pull off.

Exxaxl: Can I interest you into this old border Metalwork Colossus as a participation prize ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?

Chief: There’s no need to bully me.

The perception that mono-white is the weakest color identity in Commander can make playing it feel inaccessible for new players or those accustomed to playing other colors. This sentiment is one that I’d like to change.

I do want to make one thing clear: nobody was harmed during the making of this content. It’s all done with special effects, I promise!

I don’t know what the plan is for this product line moving forward. I would have been very surprised if they put Anointed Procession and Rooftop Storm in these decks, but it’s so much more fun to predict spicy cards! We already know that they’ll include some popular staples every time. Even though we did poorly on our predictions, I wouldn’t change a thing about how we did it.

Exxaxl: Dimir precon! Woo! Blue and black, before you attack, hold that thought while I respond on the stack. Banishing Knack and tap my zombie token to send your commander back…to your hand.

Chief: Are you done? 🤦

Exxaxl: Yes.

Wizards has been pretty adventurous when it comes to the combinations of card types that they’ve included on double-sided cards over the past few years, so I really hope that they do something interesting again here. The expanded text box on meld cards allows for some very unique design space.

You must be prepared to do a little bit of extra math during your combat step, but this likely won’t be a long-term problem when you can swiftly crush your enemies with a magnificent parade of formidable attackers.

Finally I was surprised that Calgar appears to be bald in his art. While the "Bald Space Marine" has been a great joke for many years, his most recent model does indeed have hair.

Have you ever had the oddly specific desire to turn every single creature spell that you cast into either a Knight of Autumn or an Elvish Rejuvenator? Well, now you can!

I don’t know if this was supposed to be a card for Standard and they simply ran out of room there, and I think it’s an interesting ability to play around with, but to me boxed precons really shouldn’t have cards that don’t work in the deck they got printed in. Putting Greed, Phyrexian Reclamation or fetchlands in the precon would have prevented this card from just being a glorified Vampire Nighthawk.

One of the key factors why Tasigur is such a good Hermit Druid commander is his delve ability, which allows Tasigur to be cast for a single black mana after the Hermit Druid activation! This is one of the advantages that Tasigur has in comparison with other Hermit Druid commanders like Kenrith, the Returned King or the partner pairing of Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver.

Exxaxl: ‘Now that I flashed in my Embercleave in response to Tetsuo’s attack trigger, I will cast Surge to Victory for free from hand, targeting Invoke Calamity in my graveyard!’

Chief: Please stop. This is why more people are starting to play stax.

Notably, you as a player do not phase out and neither do the cards in your hand, library, graveyard, or any other game zone aside from the battlefield. The same is true of any spells or abilities that you control on the stack.

While the enemy painlands have been reprinted multiple times in recent years, we haven’t seen the allied painlands since Tenth Edition. That means that it has been 15 years since they were last reprinted. I’m honestly not sure why they’ve been overlooked for so long, but this set seems like a great place to bring them back.