The 6 legendary creatures from Aether Revolt are a bit of a mixed bag for commander players, from interesting commanders, to good cards for the 99, to basically unplayable. What ideas are running through my head?

Honorary Mention - the Heart of Ghirapur. This little Thopter is not the colourless commander we need, but maybe it’s the one we deserve? Trying to win with Heart of Ghirapur voltron, using a bunch of equipment, seems to be your best (albeit bad) hope.

1] Sram - all the auras
Mono-white loves auras, but up to now we’ve had no legal mono-white commanders that encourage playing in that space (Kitsune Mystic sadly only flips into a legend and thus is ineligible, though is awesome in a Sram deck). As well as creature-boosting auras like Celestial Mantle and Spectra Ward, I would run most of the removal options as well, like Pacifism and Arrest. Then fill up the deck with Bestow creatures, that can be cast as auras to draw cards, and White’s fabulous enchantment and aura support - Hero of Iroas (make auras cheaper), Nomad Mythmaker (return auras from the graveyard to play), and Ajani’s Chosen (add cats with your auras).

Special Tech - Flickering Ward. W for an aura that gives enchanted creature pro the colour of your choice, and bounces back to your hand for W. In Sram that reads WW draw a card - pretty sweet for a Mono White deck!

2] Baral - loves the graveyard
Never one to look for the obvious build (mono-Blue control, counter all the spells), I was looking at what you could do with Baral’s ability to draw and discard, aka to loot. So what can you do with a loot? You can use madness to counter another spell (circular logic), draw another card (obsessive search) or mind control (welcome to the fold). You can fuel spell mastery and delirium to power up Talent of the Telepath, or Scour the Laboratory. Or you can play flashback cards to get extra value (Deep Analysis, Snapcaster Mage). Of course you still need a huge number of counter spells to benefit from all that, but for a Blue mage Baral is pretty unimaginative.

Special Tech - Rise from the Tides. For 5U Sorcery, make a 2/2 Zombie for each instant and sorcery in your graveyard. Finish the game in style - with black creatures.

3] Yahenni - counter counting
While Yahenni would be great in a mono-black control deck, making them indestructible while wrathing the board, I’m more interested in a +1/+1 counters deck. Black offers a few ways to make use of counters, namely Retribution of the Ancients, that can remove counters to shrink creatures, while Oona’s Blackguard gives your creatures the spectre ability (discard when hit) and Mer-Ek Nightblade gives them deathough. Give your creatures counters with Feast on the Fallen, Unspeakable Symbol, Necropolis Regent or Drana, Liberator of Malakir. Then proliferate with Spread the Sickness.

Special Tech - Blade of the Bloodchief. A 1 drop equipment, equips for 1, and gives equipped vampire 2 +1/+1 counters when anything dies. Yahenni becomes enormous!

4] Kari Zev - barrel of monkeys
If there was a poster child for legendary creatures not made for our format, Kari Zev might be it. She looks awesome, Ragavan is a legendary MONKEY! With Goggles! But what can you actually do with her? I first looked for monkeys and apes in mono-red, which gives you 5 cards, the best of which are Gorilla Shaman (that can kill artifacts at a hefty cost), and Ravenous Baboons (that kills a nonbasic land). You could try to make a Vorthos-y deck, and use the Skyship Weatherlight to represent the Dragon’s Smile, but with no other pirates or monkeys in mono-red you will be left a bit short. Then I thought you could go goggles tribal, using all the Chandras, Jaya Ballard, Act on Impulse and Pyromancer’s Goggles. Finally I wondered if you could create a house rule that Ragavan is your real commander, and try to win with Sai of the Shinobi and Hero’s Blade attaching to the monkey every time Kari attacks. In the end I have no better suggestions than to smash some or all of these together and see what seems fun.

Special Tech - Mirror Gallery + Blade of Selves + Sundial of the Infinite. The legendary rule no longer applies, so end the turn with Ragavan’s exile trigger on the stack and you can keep making monkeys! Blade of Selves creates a bunch of monkeys every turn. Is this powerful? No, but it is funny.

5] Rishkar - Fun-guy
A +1/+1 counter theme is the obvious way to go with this powerful Elf, and honestly it probably is the best, but the deck brewer in me wants to see Rishkar paired with something more interesting. My suggestion? Thallids. They add a counter to themselves in the upkeep, allowing them to tap for mana with Rishkar on the field, then you can produce tokens and go wide, ramping up to your regular green top end. Utopia Mycon, that turns saprolings into mana, and Psychotrope Thallid, that turns them into cards, are probably the best of the bunch. At the top end Avenger of Zendikar looks particularly ridiculous when all the plants tap for mana!

Special Tech - Fungal Bloom. GG for an enchantment with GG: put a spore counter on target Fungus. Speed up your mana and saproling production! 

What are you going to build with the Aether Revolt legends?

Kaladesh is the kind of plane I can really get behind, as it inspires innovation and creation. For the purposes of this I’m leaving out legendary creatures and cards I intend to put into other decks (hope to get to those in weeks to come). So what has got my creative juices going in Aether Revolt?

1] Mechanized Production
What an epic card for our format! Enchant something with an ETB effect like Spine of Ish Sah, or any of the Gearhulks. Then use artifact counters like clues, gold, thopters, myr or servos to win the game from nowhere. For maximum win power combine the two with Myr Battlesphere. Very powerful in most artifact decks but I could easily see Sharuum or Breya using this to its greatest effect.

2] Scrap Trawler
I love to sacrifice my artifacts for fun and profit, and with Breya now as my go to artifact commander I want to be sacrificing more and more. Scrap Trawler turns such decks into engines, as cards go in and out of graveyards gaining value each cycle. Combine with Krark-Clan Ironworks, the Wellsprings and AER’s own Implements.

3] Trophy Mage
I love to try and build decks with odd restrictions, so how about a deck a deck around the Artifact Mages - Trinket, Treasure and Trophy - and every other card is an artifact that costs either 1, 3 or 6 mana? Best 3-drops include the Swords, Coalition Relic, Ashnod’s Altar and Burnished Hart. I’d love to see a Padeem deck based on this concept.

4] Call for Unity + Hidden Stockpile - token blink
There are lots of creatures in black and white that make tokens on entering the battlefield - Marsh Flitter, Sengir Autocrat and Grave Titan are some of my personal favourites. Mix in all the Fabricate creatures from Kaladesh, and a bunch of blink/flicker effects - Conjurer’s Closet probably being the best. Then blink a creature, and Hidden Stockpile makes another token, and Call for Unity pumps the whole team by more each time. Combine with Blue for more blink effects like Mistmeadow Witch. Teysa, Orzhov Scion might be a good commander for this deck, or Ravos + X to expand your colours.

5] Aid from the Cowl
Lurking Predators has been a powerhouse of EDH since its printing, so doubling up the effect with Aid from the Cowl is very powerful, and expanding the effect to all permanents turns this into a really effective engine. Fetchlands are probably the best way to trigger Revolt, but I could also imagine a token sacrifice deck like Mazirek or Meren generating a lot of value from the Cowl. One of my favourite things to do in EDH is try to cheat cards into play off the top of my deck using Intet the Dreamer, Descendant’s Path or Call of the Wild together with scry or Hua Tuo to fix the top card of your deck.

That’s just a brief glimpse of what Aether Revolt has to offer. What cards are you excited to brew around?

Here is the solution for last week’s puzzle, Smuggler’s Thopter. If you missed it, you can find it here.

It will take 1 Hour to complete the sting.

Every 20 minutes, my Thopters will be able to bring me a total of 4 artifacts, meaning that they will bring me all twelve in 60 minutes!

Not the most efficient system, granted, but it’s the best I can do right now. In any case, I’ll be starting the operation tonight! Want to see how it went? You can see the result of my sting here.

Anyways, thanks for the help! I’ll give you 30 Thopters as a reward. If only these little thopters I give out were strong enough to lift artifacts. Then maybe this sting would go faster. :T

Severalweeksago, I took a trip to Kaladesh to partake in the Inventor’s Fair. And unfortunately, as most of you know, it didn’t exactly turn out so good. I got into a fight with a member of the Consulate and I had all my artifacts confiscated! If they think that I, a proud Espirian Artificer, am just going to let them keep my precious metal babies, then they have another thing coming. I’m going to return to Kaladesh to reclaim what was taken from me!

So what does that mean for all of you? Well, just like last time, the puzzles for the next two weeks will be based on my travels in Kaladesh. And, to help you all get ready for the upcoming prerelease, there will be an additionalpuzzle this Thursday, using only cards that you will find in your Aether Revolt sealed pool.

I hope to see you all back on Kaladesh soon. Viva la Revolution!

Here is the solution for last week’s bonus puzzle, Caught! A Revolting Battle. If you missed it, you can find it here.

For this puzzle, timing is everything! In order to get past the Exquisite Archangel, we’re going to need to plan how we play our cards very carefully. This puzzle is going to be pretty tricky, but what do you expect? We are facing off against the Head Judge himself.

Strap in, things are going to get spicy!

1. Ok, first thing we need to do is pay UR to cast Wrangle, targeting the Cataclysmic Gearhulk. Use Embraal Gear-Smasher’s ability to sacrifice the Gearhulk to deal 2 damage to the Head Judge, bringing him down to 6 life. Revolt is now online!
2. Use UG to cast Hidden Herbalists. We have Revolt, so the Herbalists will add GG to our mana pool.
3. Use one the G form the Herbalists to cast Greenbelt Rampager. Then, in response to the Greenbelt’s ETB trigger, tap the Greenbelt to crew Skysovereign. Greenbelt bounces back to our hand, and we get E. We’ll then pay E to activate Multiform Wanderer’s second ability, giving it flying.
4. Repeat step 3 again using the second G from the Herbalists, but this time we’ll crew the Heart of Kiran and give Multiform Wanderer +2/-2, making it a 5/1 flyer.
5. Pay UUB and 1 life (by tapping our Spire of Industry) to cast Tezzeret’s Touch, enchanting the Exquisite Archangel’s Lightning Greaves. Because a creature can’t be equipped to a creature, the now 5/5 Lightning Greaves will fall off of the Angel.
6. Pay U to cast Take into Custody, tapping down the Archangel.
7. Pay URR to cast Siege Modifications on Audacious Infiltrator, making him a 6/1 First striker.
8. Now it’s time to go to attacks! Swing with everybody (besides the Embraal Gear-Smasher, obviously). We’ll have Skysovereign’s attack trigger deal 3 damage to Foundry Hornet, killing it.
9. Because Audacious Infiltrator can’t be blocked by artifact creatures, and the rest of your team is flying, your army can’t be blocked at all! Because he has first strike, the Infiltrator will deal 6 damage to the Head Judge, bringing his life total down to 0. This would normally kill him, but Exquisite Archangel will instead reset his life total to 20.
10. Finally, let’s pay our last two RR to give Skyship Stalker +1/+0 twice. Our four remaining attackers are now going to deal exactly 20 damage (4+6+5+5). Killing him a second time! Victory!

It wasn’t easy, but we just barely managed to get out of there alive! The Head Judge is no joke. I really hope that’s the last we see of that guy!

I’m really thankful for those of you who helped me out in my time of need! I know this was a tricky puzzle, so I’ll reward 70 Thopters to those that solved this one. You earned it!