Illustrious Wanderglyph – Lost Caverns of Ixalan
Date Reviewed: December 15, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 1.50
Casual: 4.13
Limited: n/a
Multiplayer: 4.13
Commander [EDH]: 4.13
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
A creature that creates a massive number of tokens and buffs them is about as white a concept as you can get. That makes it even more curious how few of those cards really made it in constructed; that, however, probably has to do with the fact that a card concept like that can be quite dangerous and dominant without the right sort of counterplay. Illustrious Wanderglyph is more on the fun end of the spectrum than the competitive end, mostly because the easiest way to get him at full power is to control a bunch of creatures or tokens from previous turns, making him rather redundant. But he plays a role that some fun decks will definitely like, especially in Commander where games often go long; and there’s undoubtedly someone out there who needs as many “lords” for artifact creatures as they can get their hands on.
Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
This is a Commander set card, so my scores reflect that.
“Build your own army” is always a fun approach for a card to take, and Illustrious Wanderglyph promises just that and a bit more. The word that does the most heavy lifting here is “each”: in this case, you get a Gnome at each upkeep instead of just at your own, and this can raise an army with comic speed. Raising that army also gets you closer to flipping ascend on, which makes all of those Gnome tokens into a massive issue…and means that you might be able to drop this into an established board and threaten lethal out of nowhere.
The downsides of this card are clear: it’s fragile and expensive, and it does not buff itself when it’s active. But it’s the kind of army raiser that can be a massive threat in short order and can threaten a board with complete chaos in order. As long as you protect this, there’s a lot of chaos to be created.
Constructed: 1.5 (way too slow to fire)
Casual: 4.25
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 4.25
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
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