Rise of the Eldrazi – Commander Masters
Date Reviewed: August 14, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.00
Casual: 5.00
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 4.25
Commander [EDH]: 4.37
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
It’s too bad this card breaks the symmetry that some recent cards with set names seemed to be setting – Urza’s Saga and The Brothers’ War are both actual saga cards. Perhaps the idea is that the rise of the Eldrazi was too short an event to be a saga, and the comparable story would be more like an enchantment named Battle for Zendikar? I kind of like the idea of that card, now that I think of it.
Mechanically, Rise of the Eldrazi (the card) is the latest in a long line of conceptually similar sorceries. As we noted when we reviewed Last Stand recently, there’s a subset of spells where you expect to just win on the spot every time you cast them, and this is one of the best at doing that. When you factor in the uncounterability, it might even be slightly undercosted for what it does, and Emeria forbid you manage to copy it somehow. I’m not sure I can even say it’s a casual-only card, because there’s a new rogue deck in Legacy that uses all the lands that produce two mana so that its curve can start at five mana and you hit it with a bunch of six-mana cascade spells. It seems fitting for a card named for a set that changed how we thought about whole parts of Magic.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 5
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 4.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
Another spell that joins the list of “spells whose names are also set names”, Rise of the Eldrazi is simultaneously a fairly lazy spell and a brilliant one. The spell is three effects, all of them the cast triggers of the original three Eldrazi Titans from Rise of the Eldrazi. Destroying target permanent is Ulamog’s thing, drawing four cards is Kozilek’s, and taking an extra turn and making the entire thing uncounterable is courtesy of Emrakul. You don’t get the big bodies, but what’s functionally a Time Walk, Opportunity, and Vindicate all stapled to one uncounterable card is a surprising amount of value…particularly the colorless Time Walk, which is notable because Emrakul 1.0 is banned in Commander, and this is also cheaper than she would be.
I’m not completely sold on this in Constructed, but I think it has potential. There is a Legacy deck (12 Post) famous for obscene mana generation, and this might be a nice additional tool for the deck to say “this game ends now“. Commander is more promising, but this demands three colorless mana specifically, which is enough that most decks that aren’t explicitly aiming to enact The Tentacling won’t be able to generate consistently enough. Despite costing 12 mana, this does a lot with that investment, and I fully expect it to do Things.
My only complaint about this card overall is that it’s not a Tribal Sorcery, but they rarely bring Tribal out of mothballs anymore, so here we are.
Constructed: 3 (has promise in 12 Post)
Casual: 5
Limited: N/A (probably a 2 or so in this format; demanding triple-colorless is a tall task)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (great colorless payoff)
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