(Evie Frye | Art by Lie Setiawan)

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts & Lands | Allied Colors and Shards | Enemy Colors and Wedges | Reprints | cEDH

Synchronizing...

Hello and welcome back to the latest set review here on EDHREC and Commander’s Herald, I’m Joshua, also known as PrinceofBielTan on the internet. Today, I’ll be guiding you back in time as we explore the best blue cards in the Assassin’s Creed set.

Universes Beyond: Assassin’s Creed is the latest in the series of collaboration products between Magic: The Gathering and other IPs. We’ve covered everything from the grim dark universe of Warhammer 40,000 to the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Fallout setting. This latest journey takes us back into the historical fantasy setting of Assassin’s Creed, where protagonist characters relive the memories of their ancestors in an eternal conflict for the fate of the world itself.

That’s great for them and all, but does this translate into fun cards for our games of Commander? Let’s find out as we do a deep eagle dive into this exciting new expansion!

Mythics

Leonardo da Vinci

This is where Assassin’s Creed gets a little weird, where you’ll start to see historical figures from the real world. Exciting right? I’m sure if you don’t think so, you’ll let us know about it in the comments below. But for now, let’s examine our only mythic rare in our colour.

Da Vinci is a legendary artificer, notably a relevant creature type for blue, who cares about creating Thopter copies of artifact cards in our deck. In addition, we have a built-in win condition where we can give our Thopters base power and toughness equal to the number of cards in our hand.

Blue is the colour of card draw, and you’ll find an incredible amount of artifact synergy in blue so I feel like the renowned inventor is going to be comfortable either at the head of a Commander deck himself or in the 99 of a commander like Urza, Lord High Artificer. Ensuring that we fill our Da Vinci deck with enough artifacts will enable him to create flying creature versions of all of our favourite artifacts from Magic’s history. This is likely going to lead to some insane combos as we animate and copy things that were never supposed to be copied.

However, I respect the simplicity of providing a board full of evasive flying Thopters that we can deal massive damage to our opponents with, simply by doing what our deck is likely already doing... Drawing cards! This commander is wide open and will allow for some very creative brews, but it’s a commander that’s accessible enough to appeal to new players too. Bravissimo!

Rares

Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass

Our first rare is a four mana value legendary mana rock which taps for a single blue mana. Four mana rocks that tap for only one are already a bit of a tough sell so let’s see what this card offers as a trade off.

The ability to look at the top card of our library at any time is a common one in blue, cards like The Reality Chip have enabled blue players to assemble combos through card advantage so it’s not bad to see this effect again. This card however is a little more narrow, allowing us to cast spells so long as they’re historic and play lands so long as they’re historic.

Honestly, I’ve got to say I’d go for The Reality Chip in scenarios where I’m looking for this kind of effect. I’m not sure tapping for mana is enough for me here. You can certainly get value out of this card if you make sure to run a high amount of historic permanents but this card gets stopped by a basic island, whereas The Reality Chip does not. It also has two blue pips in its casting cost, which makes it a little harder to cast in multicolor decks.

Desynchronization

Desynchronization refers to a fun feature in the games that occurs when you do something that goes against history so it’s great to see it in card form, and speaking of... What a card!

We’ve got a four-mana instant speed board wipe, which is crazy. Four mana is about as good a rate as you can get for a board wipe in most decks, and this is going to remove each nonland permanent that isn’t historic. This means everyone who has a commander in play is going to at least have one permanent, but this will deal with most creatures.

I think this card is a great board wipe for Commander, as it can reset the board without removing everyone’s mana rocks, meaning you’re going to deal with creatures while not making everyone have to replay out all of their artifacts which can lead to some fairly uneventful turns. This one keeps tempo nicely, not only in game, but it doesn’t add too much in terms of game length too.

Evie Frye

Well, we finally have one of those so-called Assassins, let's see what the fuss is all about then. In all fairness, Evie Frye is one half of a partner pair, and you’ll need to stay tuned to our set review to find out about her partner.

When Evie fights solo, she’s able to allow us to draw and discard a card and grant one of our creatures a bit of evasion so long as we discard a creature. This is a nice ability that not only helps us connect through complicated commander board states, it allows us to dump creatures in the graveyard for reanimation shenanigans! This card comes down nice and early and can help us set up for later turns, it’s also got that Assassin creature type which is going to synergise so well with the other cards in this set. Throw this card in a dimir reanimator shell and call it a day!

Uncommons & Commons

Assassin Gauntlet

This bit of unconventional Equipment is a real gem of an uncommon, I’d love it a little more if it had flash but even without it’s a lovely card. Tapping all creatures target opponent controls is really going to help you get those combat damage triggers; as a Felix Five-Boots player, this card is great to see. Not only that, it’s a slight combat buff and you’re able to get a bit of card selection!

All of the above make this card an above-average combat trick, but what I like is how you can flicker this card. You’ll get to keep changing the creature it’s equipped to, and keep tapping down creatures. If you can flicker this at instant speed, you can use it as a fog to evade an opponent’s combat step. This utility pushes the gauntlet into playable for me, and I’ll certainly look to try this in my decks.

Ballad of the Black Flag

The historic theme is strong in this set, and this saga allows you a great deal of card selection so long as your deck is built to take advantage of all the historic cards we have access to in Commander.

For the first three turns this card is in play, it’s going to essentially draw you a card while filling your graveyard and these are both things we love doing in commander. For the final turn, however, discounting your historic spells by two is not only a way to fill your board full of legendary creatures but it’s a way to set up for a big combo turn. There are lots of ways to draw your deck in Commander through cards like The Reality Chip and Sensei's Divining Top that only rely on cost reduction. Here you’ve got that exact effect on a card that also just drew you three cards! Modern commander is crazy!

Become Anonymous

Okay now here we have a very interesting card. This card allows us to misdirect our opponent, potentially save a creature of ours from removal and potentially increase our board state by sneaking powerful creatures into play that may otherwise eat a Counterspell.

You’re going to want a little top deck manipulation to always come out on top with a card like this, but honestly, it’s going to put a lot of bodies on the board for its mana cost. You could even use this card if you need surprise blockers in an opponent’s combat step. It’s not the most efficient card in the world, but it’s certainly fun and could lead to some entertaining table interactions which ultimately is what Commander is all about.

Escape Detection

Our final card of the review, (Right? This set is tiny!) features one of its new mechanics, freerunning. Here we have a simple blue spell that bounces a creature back to hand and also draws the controller a card. The catch here is if an Assassin or commander dealt combat damage to a player this turn then the spell gains an alternate cost.

Rather than paying mana to activate this spell, we can return a blue creature we control to our hand. This could be a nice way to get a second enter-the-battlefield ability or it works perfectly with the ninjutsu ability too. While Ninjas aren’t Assassins (Not until the next game releases anyway), an evasive commander could make this worth including in a Ninjas deck. Not that we needed any more reasons to fear Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow.

Alright, that was our brief look at the most impactful spells for Blue from Universes Beyond Assassins Creed. As a set that doesn’t have an affiliated commander product (for a change), comes with its own new kind of booster and has a slim card list, I’m quite surprised to see some fairly interesting cards. I think the Assassin’s Gauntlet is legitimately one of my favourite new blue pieces of Equipment since Cryptic Coat and it’s always interesting to see how different franchises are able to add unique card designs to Magic: The Gathering.

For now, though, we want to hear from you. What do you think of Assassin’s Creed? Are you a fan? Have you heard about it for the first time? Let us know what you think of the set and the cards in the comments below! How are you planning to utilize them in your decks?

Remember to stay tuned for the rest of our set reviews as the days leading up to release through the navigation at the top of the article. I’ve been Joshua, and it’s time to Become Anonymous!

Joshua Clough

Joshua is a Medical Researcher from the UK. He's played Magic since Dragons of Tarkir and loves all things Commander, the more colours the better! When not playing Commander, he can be found insisting Jund is still a viable deck in Modern and painting tiny plastic miniatures on Twitter @PrinceofBielTan