Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar – Edge of Eternities
Date Reviewed: July 22, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.00
Casual: 4.17
Limited: 4.43
Multiplayer: 3.83
Commander [EDH]: 4.08
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Some constructed players have a degree of bias against creatures that “only” attack and block, but this is a mistake. Attacking enough times and doing so effectively wins games; on top of that, you always have to be alert to creatures that are good at attacking in multiple phases of the game. Tarmogoyf and Figure of Destiny were early examples of creatures like that, and I see a little bit of the same pedigree in Vondam. He doesn’t scale up quite as automatically as those famous cards, but gains the ability to dissuade opponents from aiming their removal spells at your other creatures. This does mean that they’ll often go for him first, and his sorcery speed of casting makes him somewhat susceptible to this strategy. But there are ways to address this, too, and even just casting him before attacking with a couple of other creatures will give opponents pause. As for his death trigger, there’s perhaps not much to say about something obviously good, except to remind you that you can trigger it yourself in a lot of decks.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar is an interesting take on things given to white and black together, rewarding you as things die…or go to exile, which is quite useful in a set with a mechanic that sends things to exile. Warping creatures in will allow the ability to trigger at turn’s end, and there only needs to be 2 additional counters above the baseline to make this creature a less-appealing target to remove. But it’s not a purely defensive creature: menace and vigilance pair well together, and this can be attacking as quite a threat. THis is an excellent rpesence in Limited as a threat that grows just for playing the game, and it may even have Constructed legs if you can get it rolling quickly enough…hilariously, I could see it playing well with the now-banned Monstrous Rage, but we can’t always have nice things.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.75
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
Thijs
Orzhov has been responsible for some darned powerful creatures over the years. We think of Teysa Karlov, Ratadrabik and of course Lurrus of the Dream-Den.
The combination of white’s pump and lifegain and black’s removal, and all of that in a 2-mana creature packed with flavor, makes Syr Vondam a fine addition to Orzhov’s legions.
In early games you have a 2/2 with menace that never taps. In the mid- and endgame you have a grown threat that only needs to wait for the right moment to block, die and then remove another threat.
It’s hard to see where she won’t make an impact.
Constructed: 4 (pioneer, standard and modern have great orzhov decks, add this!)
Casual: 4
Limited: 4,5 (bomb, draft this)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
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