Chandra’s Regulator – Core Set 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Chandra’s Regulator is like five different unusual designs in one card: a colored artifact, a card that calls out a specific planeswalker by name/type, a red-shifted Jayemdae Tome. Probably some other things I’m forgetting, too. Unusual doesn’t always mean powerful, at least not for the context of tournament play – tournaments don’t often see a red deck that wants to fit in a card that doesn’t do damage or that doesn’t get card advantage consistently. I wouldn’t rule it out, but for Standard you’d probably have to find a way to fit in most of the legal Chandra cards, which could get awkward. 

Still, there’s like five options for Chandras who could be the leader of a Brawl deck right now!

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Chandra’s Regulator is a pretty interesting card that aims to do two things: empower Chandra planeswalkers, and do things when you don’t have Chandra planeswalkers to empower. A looting effect is always nice in a color that sometimes struggles to keep the gas coming in the late game, but the real attraction is in that doubling effect. In the case of the Chandras, a lot of them are simply “burn something again”, which isn’t too horrible a place to be! It’s maybe less impactful overall than other planeswalkers, but doubling your burn for one extra mana is a solid price.

The issue is that Chandra’s Regulator doesn’t do enough overall, even with the Chandra planeswalkers. It loots slowly (which is a nice fallback), but devoting a slot to a looting effect isn’t a great use of resources. So that makes for a flavorful, but ultimately low-impact, card that still might be useful if you are ambitious enough.

Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 3.25
Limited: 2.25
Multiplayer: 2
Commander: 3