Forensic Gadgeteer by Volkan Baga

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Blue's Clues

This most recent return to the plane of Ravnica sees us in the depths of intrigue and plot. There's been a Murder, and I’m not just talking about the instant-speed removal spell for 1BB. Lies and rumors are spreading through the streets, and while Ravnica is no stranger to a Disinformation Campaign, you’ll want to stick to trusted sources to make sure you’re equipped with the knowledge you need to survive this trip.

Here at EDHREC, we’re legitimate business people, so join us for a set review week where we’ll show you the truth from the lies. We’ll separate the bombs from the duds, and by the end of this week, you’ll feel like a detective yourself.

Welcome to Murders at Karlov Manor preview week here on EDHREC. I’m Josh, and I’ll be taking you through the best blue cards you’ll want to include in your Commander decks. I’ve got lots of spells to assess and lots of evidence to collect if I’m going to convince you to investigate these cards for your deck upgrades. We’re going to be assessing cards from the main set as well as a select few from some of the Commander decks. Let’s get started!

Mythics

Conspiracy Unraveler

Our first mythic rare is Conspiracy Unraveler, proving that anyone on the plane of Ravnica can be a detective, with or without a fedora. This card is a flying 6/6 that gives us the ability to collect evidence 10 rather than pay the mana cost for spells that we cast. 

Blue loves casting spells for free; just look at all the decks here on the site that want to ramp into Omniscience. That being said, it takes a certain kind of blue deck to include effects like this one. When you think of blue in Commander, you might think of quick, low-mana-value spells that cantrip, like Brainstorm, Opt, Ponder, and Consider. So, consider this. You aren’t going to want to collect evidence rather than pay a single blue mana for any of those spells. Which spells then, are we going to cast? Big mana spells are going to be key here.

Personally, I quite like the idea of casting extra turn spells with this ability. Time Stretch is the perfect example of a spell that’s backbreaking to resolve and expensive to cast. I’d more than happily present my case if it meant getting two extra turns. Then, Time Stretch, as a ten-mana spell, itself, can fuel collective evidence on one of our extra turns to keep the value going. 

This Sphinx requires a home in the right deck to be the right inclusion, and the card itself lacks any kind of built-in protection we’d like to see on a seven-mana mythic in today’s Commander economy. It’s a fun inclusion, but you’re not going to want to cram this into all of your blue decks.

Intrude on the Mind

This variant on the typical Fact or Fiction-esque card is our next set mythic, and this is a card I’m going to expect to see in our 60-card formats more than in EDH. There are some notables here, however. 

Firstly, you’re choosing the piles for selection rather than your opponent, which, unless you’re adept in mind games, can read a little more overtly than you choosing from piles your opponent has presented back to you. Secondly, this card leaves behind a creature that will get a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the number of those cards that hit the graveyard. This paired with the instant-speed nature of the spell means that this card can be held up to get you a blocker in a pinch. If there’s an overwhelming threat at the table, cards like these are best utilized alongside some politicking. Another opponent may just let you keep all the cards in one pile so long as it results in you finding an answer for a problem permanent at the table.

Where our last mythic was narrow, Intrude on the Mind is a little wider. You could technically put this card in the majority of blue decks, though you’ll benefit more if it’s in one with a bit of recursion. This is an interesting card, but by no means a must-include.

Rares

Case of the Ransacked Lab

Our mythics might be mid, but Case of the Ransacked Lab has all the hallmarks of a card that blue mages will be including in their decks for years to come. 

For one less mana than a Jace's Sanctum, Case of the Ransacked Lab offers the same cost reduction we care so much about when using our mana efficiently and chaining spells together. While we lose the built-in scry 1, solving this case is going to result in us drawing cards instead which is a payoff we don’t mind working for. This enchantment is slightly more resilient to removal than its creature-based variants, too, like Haughty Djinn. 

Decks like Talrand, Sky Summoner will absolutely snap this up, but ultimately this is a card with very wide application. I think we’ll see it frequently for a long time to come!

Case of the Shifting Visage

Case of the Shifting Visage grants you card selection and fuel for the graveyard, supporting the collect evidence mechanic plus any other shenanigans you might have going on. This case feels fairly incidental to solve though grants a powerful payoff. 

This card is likely too slow in a deck that isn’t making use of its graveyard at all. That is, unless your deck is loaded with late-game expensive spells you’d just love to copy. Where this card really shines is if you’re running a self-mill deck; you’ll find this condition easy to meet. Muldrotha, the Gravetide feels like a natural home for a card like this one.

Coveted Falcon

Our first instance of the disguise mechanic, where this creature can be cast for three generic mana to enter the battlefield as a 2/2 creature with ward 2. We can then pay the designated disguise cost of 1U to turn this card face up. 

When this card is turned face up, you can donate any number of target permanents you own, drawing a card for each permanent that your opponent gained control of this way. When the Coveted Falcon attacks, you can gain back control of one of those permanents you own but don’t control.

We don’t want to be giving our opponents anything too valuable, so I think we want to be donating tokens and turning them into card draws. Between any of the plethora of recently printed artifact tokens, we could give our opponents Food and Clues. In their absence, we can give them some token blockers to curry a little favor. This card could provide a lot of card advantage if you have permanents to spare, although you’ll want to make sure that the opponent you give your tokens to can’t make too much use out of them.

Cryptic Coat

Cryptic Coat is a neat new addition to the Equipment locker that gives us a new way of giving one of our creatures unblockable. That’s not all, though. Cryptic Coat allows us to cloak to the top card of our library, so if we draw into this card with an empty board, it’s not entirely useless. We’re even able to use this Equipment as a mana sink by returning it to hand, replaying it, then cloaking the top card of our library repeatedly. Not a bad way of sneaking something scary into play.

Final-Word Phantom

Final-Word Phantom asks us to question the lines between Universes Beyond, Universes Within, and pop culture references with its inspired design paying homage to the TV detective Columbo. This Franchises: The Gathering card provides a pretty unique effect, though, granting pseudo-flash to our spells so long as they’re cast specifically on an opponent’s end step. This isn’t a massive restriction; after all, if you think about the times you typically cast spells on your opponents' turns, the end step is a fairly common place to do it, especially if you’re the next player in turn rotation. I think that this card is fairly likely to see play. Considering it has flash, your opponents really aren’t going to get the final word this time.

Follow the Bodies

This card has checks notes Gravestorm? Well, that’s a first; I’ve never reviewed a card with this keyword before. This feels like a great card to cast after a board wipe, so why is it sorcery speed? If you’re going to have a decisive combat turn where your opponents are going to be forced to block and lose lots of blockers, I feel like this card can deliver quite a bit of value. 

The sorcery-speed restriction might be limiting this card a little too much in my opinion. This might be best at home in some kind of Grixis Aristocrats deck, like Marchesa, the Black Rose. 

Lost in the Maze

I’m quite big on Lost in the Maze: we can use this card to either protect our own creatures, admittedly by tapping them down, or we can tap down our opponents' creatures to get an opportunistic attack in. Giving all of our tapped creatures hexproof is nicer than it first appears. Outside of the traditional blue shenanigans, it’s also a way of giving our attacking creatures a bit of protection from combat tricks. While the card could be quite mana-intensive if we have or our opponent has a fairly large board, I will likely be trialing this in my decks in place of a traditional piece of protection. After all, it could turn out to be a-maze-ing! (Ba dum tiss).

Proft's Eidetic Memory

A legendary enchantment that gives us no maximum hand size while potentially growing our creatures? Well, so long as we can keep the card draw flowing. This is one of those cards that can come down early and provide incidental value throughout the entire game. Considering that this enchantment draws us a card as it enters the battlefield, we’re at least getting one +1/+1 counter out of it, but one counter does not a strategy make.

It’s right at home in decks like Kwain, Itinerant Meddler, and it partners nicely with group hug through Howling Mine effects. Blue isn’t lacking for cards that give no maximum hand size, but if you’re looking to close out the game through combat, you might want to consider this instead of one of the existing options.

Reenact the Crime

Reenact the Crime allows you to steal something spicy from your opponents or rebuy one of your best spells, so long as you have the mana to do it the turn that card hit the graveyard.

This is one of those cards that’s realistically going to scale with the table: if your opponents are bringing huge haymakers to the battlefield, then sure, you might want to steal one. This condition of ‘card in a graveyard that was put there from anywhere this turn’ is going to be a real limiting factor here. Furthermore, we’re looking at holding up four mana for this, and that triple U is going to make this a hard card to splash for. Maybe this crime isn’t one that needs reenacting after all. In other formats this card is certainly going to be popular; I have a feeling this will make it into decks like Indomitable Creativity in Pioneer, no questions asked.

In Commander, though? I feel like this card might be used by the more sadistic blue mages who counter their opponents' biggest threats only to steal it themselves. A crime truly worthy of the Murders at Karlov Manor.

Steamcore Scholar

Once again proving that anyone can be a detective in this set, Steamcore Scholar is a nice card draw or selection spell that comes with a flying vigilant body attached to it. It’s quite a lot of card for three mana. If you’ve got this effect at sorcery speed, it’s always worth considering replacing a sorcery-speed draw spell with a creature just to give you a bit of board presence in those early turns. 

The fact that this is an enter-the-battlefield trigger makes this card a great option to pair with cards that flicker creatures, like Ghostly Flicker in blue and Ephemerate in white. Orvar, the All-Form players are always happy to see a creature with an enter-the-battlefield trigger like this because this is really a great effect to have in multiples. 

Flying and vigilance is going to contribute to early game chip damage, too, which can add up in the long run. Put this scholar into decks that care about flashback and graveyard recursion so that, no matter what you draw, you’re always getting closer to cracking the case.

Uncommons & Commons

Candlestick

As we move into the uncommon cards, Candlestick is exactly the kind of card I get excited about in my old age. This card curves wonderfully, coming down on turn one, with a nice low Equipment cost, and it has the ability to impact the game as soon as we have a creature to swing with it.

Even if we don’t, it’s a Clue! We can crack it for two mana and draw a card anyway. I would have liked this card if it had surveil 1 written on it, but the fact that it has surveil 2 written on it is just the icing on the cake. If attacking doesn’t look possible anymore due to a congested board, I think that this added utility and delayed card draw means this card stays relevant throughout the game, which is exactly what I want my one-mana cards to be. Bravo!

Surveillance Monitor

Collecting evidence is key to finding out who our murderer is, so how about a card to develop your board state while you’re doing it? This card appears to be one of our signpost uncommons for the collect evidence mechanic, adding a Thopter token to the board whenever you do it. If you’re interested in building a deck around this mechanic, you’ll likely want to include this one. 

While a 1/1 Thopter might not be much to write home about, remember how much artifact synergy there is in this deck and in the wider color pool. A couple of Thopters hanging out for the majority of the game might not look like much, but if you’re able to contribute artifact count to mechanics like affinity and improvise then you might be able to sneak in some big threats in later turns.

Case Closed

While the Murders at Karlov Manor is bringing lots of evidence to the table, I’ve got to admit I’m not as impressed with the selection of cards we have in blue for Commander this time. There’s lots of safe new additions, but there’s not as much innovation as I’d like to see. While you might be looking to swap out some of your cost reduction for the new Case, you’re probably not making many groundbreaking changes here. Coming from a plane that’s famous for the Izzet League, I was quite surprised.

There’s an absolute ton of artifact token support, drawing two cards a turn support, and Clue synergy in general, but I think the strength in this set comes from some of its other colours and absolutely its characterful legends (which there were none of in blue, how unusual!), but you’ll have to stick around for the rest of review week here on EDHREC and Commander’s Herald to see how we break down those cards. 

Thanks for joining me for this one; as always you can chat cards with me over on Twitter or check out some of my videos over on Youtube. Do let me know in the comments what you think of this set so far. Are you particularly excited to add these cards to your decks? Do you feel like blue was top of the pile or bottom of the list? Which commanders are you planning on building from Murders at Karlov Manor. Let us and your fellow detectives know!

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