Elminster is coming to MTG Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate

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Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate is Magic: The Gatheringsecond trip to the Dungeons and Dragons universe into a completely messy, commander-focused set.

Out of the original Commander Legends in 2020, Wizards of the Coast is bringing the series back as a continuation of Adventures in Forgotten Realms from 2021. Several mechanics like dice rolling and dungeons that were introduced in Forgotten Realms will come back in Battle for Baldur’s Gate.

Along with feedback mechanisms, this iteration of Commander Legends brings iconic characters from the Baldur’s Gate series to Magic. A key character who is depicted as a planeswalker is Elminster. He is a powerful shape-shifting wizard from Faerûn.

Its card design creates Faerie tokens and supports a clairvoyance-focused deck as a way to fuel the caster archetype.

Elminster

• Mana value: 3UW
• Type: Elminster Legendary Planeswalker
• Rarity: mythical rare
• Starting Loyalty: Five
• Static Ability: Each time you scry, the next instant or sorcery spell you cast this turn costs X less to cast, where X is the number of cards scanned during scrying this way.
• First ability: +2: Draw a card, then gaze 2.
• Second ability: -3: Exile the top card of your library. Create a number of 1/1 Blue Faerie Dragon Creature tokens with flying equal to this card’s mana value.
• Third ability: Elminster can be your commander.

Elminster is another planeswalker that continues Wizards of the Coast’s recent trend of using card type as a way to support specific archetypes rather than being generically powerful. Elminster is a five-mana card that wants to be placed at the head of a deck with lots of scry effects.

Each gaze effect reduces the cost of instant and sorcery spells you cast. Cost reduction is always powerful in Magic. Getting cost reduction through clairvoyance is a good way to generate value for something that blue decks often already do.

The card stands on its own. He can enter the battlefield and immediately draw a card and gaze with his +2 ability. Even if Elminster is removed on sight, he will at least have replaced himself and set up the next turn’s draw step.

A major key to a planeswalker’s viability is being able to protect themselves. Elminster does this well with his -3 ability. The cost reduction on Elminster encourages the player to include many expensive spells in the deck. This helps Elminster create multiple tokens because it’s based on the exiled card’s mana value.

Yew Battle for Baldur’s Gate is something like the first Commander Legends, formatting will be slow. This makes Elminster a solid option as a Commander due to the card advantage he generates over multiple turns. This will be great in games that go on for a long time and where other decks lack gas.

Battle for Baldur’s Gate is slated for a worldwide tabletop release on June 10.