(Wardens of the Cycle | Art by Caroline Gariba)

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Building the Foundations of Magic

Welcome to the Foundations Set Review for the Enemy color cards! This set doesn't have a ton of gold cards but of the ones we did get, we got some incredibly strong commanders heading our way. Let's see how these cards will impact Commander and which you should be including in your decks!

Mythics

Niv-Mizzet, Visionary

Let's talk about the dragon in the room. The new Niv-Mizzet is a powerful draw source that can turns any source of noncombat damage into card advantage. Drawing "that many cards" turns a simple Lightning Bolt into an Ancestral Recall. Casting Niv-Mizzet into an Impact Tremors will still net three cards when he enters. It'll be hard not to storm off with Niv-Mizzet with the abundance of cheap burn spells there are in Commander.

And let's not look over the fact that Niv-Mizzet allows you to have no maximum hand size. There's no downside to abusing his draw trigger and keeping all the counterspells needed to protect him. He's another remove-on-sight commander who will undoubtedly cause trouble at lower-powered tables.

Niv-Mizzet also combos with himself. Niv-Mizzet, Parun and Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind both deal damage when you draw cards, so you can ping down your opponents and draw through your whole deck if needed. Also, Niv-Mizzet, Visionary is the easiest of the Nivs to cast, with only two color pips needed to bring him out. So the new Niv-Mizzet can find his way into 3+ color decks that consistently deal non-combat damage. I guess as an inclusion in Foundations, they gave him an easier casting cost since this set is heavily mono-color focused. No one's picking a Dragon with 4+ color pips in draft, but in Commander, this card has no downsides.

Zimone, Paradox Sculptor

They decided Vorel of the Hull Clade wasn't seeing enough play, so they made a four mana Wizard that gives out +1/+1 counters and doubles counters of each kind for two targets.

Simic +1/+1 counters is an archetype that I look at and my eyes gloss over. There are so many cards printed that either give out or enable +1/+1 counter strategies that there isn't anything interesting for me to build. However, Zimone doubling the counters of any kind on creatures or artifacts makes me want to sift through my bulk bin and find anything with a unique counter. You can double the night counters on Replicating Ring to get closer to making eight additional copies or getting additional mana off of Kami of Whispered Hopes, Heronblade Elite, and Everflowing Chalice by doubling their counters. You can double the oil counters on Mercurial Spelldancer to consistently copy spells after dealing combat damage. And The Millennium Calendar becomes a more likely wincon.

The Ozolith is another worthy inclusion in Zimone as you can double all the counters that the Ozolith catches. When it comes down to it, Zimone will make an excellent +1/+1 counters commander as she provides and enhances counters to your artifacts and creatures.

Rares

Elenda, Saint of Dusk

The new Elenda is all in on lifegain. Once we get to 50 life, Elenda becomes a 10/10 with lifelink and menace, which all but guarantees that she'll keep you above that threshold. Hexproof from instants doesn't stop boardwipes or creatures with removal, but it certainly makes it harder to remove her. But she's about as straightforward as you can get. She wants to gain a lot of life and beat down your opponents with commander damage. The real killer here is putting lifelink on such a large creature because you can then drain someone for ten with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Sanguine Bond out.

Koma, World-Eater

This is a much more tame version of Koma, Cosmos Serpent. While this Koma is still a threat to the table, he's not nearly as oppressive as the original Koma. Koma, World-Eater loses the ability to tap down permanents and interact with the table at instant speed, but he still keeps a lot of aspects that make Koma a terrifying creature. He still can't be countered, has protection in the form of ward instead of being indestructible, and still makes Koma's Coils. The original Koma was more about controlling the board while amassing a board of Serpents every upkeep, Koma, World Eater is a much more aggressive creature. Being an 8/12 with trample ensures that he'll get through and make four Serpents on combat damage. That's 20-power on board after just one attack. With Koma being a difficult creature to interact with, you have to rely on a boardwipe to successfully remove Koma and all the Serpents he'll create.

The gameplan for this deck is pretty simple. Ramp until you get to seven mana, cast Koma and maybe back him up with some counterspells to deal with any boardwipes trying to slow down Koma.

Uncommons & Commons

Fiendish Panda

Having the ability to get +1/+1 counters through lifegain is great, but as a 3/2, getting back any creature with power 3 or less is already a good deal. It's a solid reanimator for decks that run sac outlets and want to bring back small creatures. Otherwise, this slots in with lifegain decks that want to bring back Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Starscape Cleric to the battlefield to keep draining the table. And with all that said, it'll become a big beater through multiple instances of lifegain.

With less than 50 Bears printed in Magic, a "non-bear" creature translates to any creature in your graveyard. Unlike Junji, the Midnight Sky or Body Launderer where Dragons and Rogues are more prevalent, you'll rarely see a bear creature in your graveyard, especially in Orzhov.

Wardens of the Cycle

Wardens of the Cycle seems like a neat budget card for any sacrifice deck in green/black, but unfortunately in Commander, it's worse than Deathreap Ritual. The one upside to Wardens of the Cycle is that you can gain two life to trigger any life gain permanents. It's also an Elf, so it could find a home in a budget golgari Elf deck. Either way, it should be the third pick for a deck behind Moldervine Reclamation and Deathreap Ritual.

A New Era

That's all I have for you today. Foundations didn't have many new multicolored cards, and none in Foundations Jumpstart, but I'm not surprised. Since this set is about building the literal foundations of Standard for at least the next five years of Magic, there should be more focus on building the identity of each color and letting future sets define the identity of multicolored cards. Though I do have to wonder why there was only one new card for each two-color pair, but Simic got two new cards. There wouldn't happen to be any favoritism towards Simic, would there?

Let me know in the comments which cards from Foundation you're most excited about and if there are any legends from this set you're looking to build. Let me know down below and I'll see you next time!

Joshua Wood

Josh is a creative writer that started playing Magic when Throne of Eldraine was released. He loves entering combat and pressuring life totals, and to him, commander damage is always relevant. Outside of brewing many commander decks, he can be found prepping his D&D campaigns with a cat purring in his lap.