MTG Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur’s Gate – GameSpot

Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald is a new pre-built Commander Deck for Magic: The Gathering which is part of the Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate Position. The deck’s emphasis on the benefits of exile can be absolutely punishing, as it allows powerful cards to be played at low cost, with commanders summoning tokens or damaging the enemy while doing so. The Battle for Baldur’s Gate the set includes a number of characters from the Baldur’s Gate series, as well as Dungeons & Dragons in general.

Battle for Baldur’s Gate features a number of iconic characters as powerful cards, including Elminster, Tasha the Witch Queen, and Minsc the Ranger, along with her beloved hamster Boo. The set also uses mechanics that will be familiar to J&D players, including cards that require a d20 to resolve and the new initiative and the Undercity dungeon. There are cards in Battle for Baldur’s Gate which designate a player as “taking the initiative”, which reuse the dungeon mechanics of the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms together, placing the player in a dungeon called the Undercity, allowing them to benefit from maintaining initiative. If another player damages a player with the initiative, then they become the one with the initiative and can progress through the Undercity.

Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald is a green/red Commander Deck with an emphasis on using cards that have been exiled by various effects. There are three potential commanders for the deck: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald; Durnan of the Gaping Portal and passionate archaeologist; and Grumgully, the Generous. Grumgully is nowhere near as good as the other two options and only has average utility during gameplay. The more interesting question is which of the other two options is the better commander: Faldorn or Durnan? Faldorn is a legendary three-drop 3/3 human druid, who creates a 2/2 wolf token whenever a spell is cast from exile and has a one mana/tap effect of discarding a card for exile the top card from library so that it can be played.

Durnan uses a new mechanic in the Battle for Baldur’s Gate together, who will be familiar to J&D players: backgrounds. Some commander cards specify that the player can have a background as a second commander. Backgrounds are legendary enchantments that can be played from the command area and can buff the commander. Durnan is a legendary 3/3 human warrior with four strikers whose ability allows the player to look at the top four cards of their deck when Durnan attacks, allowing them to exile a single creature card, which can be played for one mana of less than its original. Cost. The background of this deck is called Passionate Archeologist and it’s a double-ended card with an effect that grants the commander an ability that damages an opponent based on the mana value of a spell cast from the exile.

There are benefits to both Commander options, but Durnan ends up winning in our opinion. Faldorn is half the price, but summoning the wolf can take a while to pay off, especially since the deck doesn’t have much token support. Faldorn’s special ability also costs one mana, one discard, and one support, in exchange for exile, in a deck full of exile effects. In contrast, the Passionate Archaeologist background has a powerful burning effect that stays active while Durnan is in the field and can really hurt the opponent, which Durnan’s Cheap Exile Summon can draw from. fully gone. Durnan must attack to use his ability, but he can just sit back and let the background deal damage without risking it, as the effect works as long as both cards are on the field. The fact that the keen archeologist is two drops away means it’s also a cheap setup during the early stages of the game.

The real meat of the Faldorn deck is its ability to exile and play from exile. The deck contains several cards with a Cascade effect, forcing the player to exile cards until they reach nonland with a lower mana cost than the Cascade card, which can then be played for free. There are also many cards that allow the player to exile cards, which can then be played as if from the hand, which also triggers the Commander’s ability. Perhaps the strongest card in the game is Etali, Primal Storm, which is a six-drop 6/6, whose attack triggers an ability that causes both players to exile the top card of their library, allowing the Etali user to play both cards without paying. their costs. Drawing Etali early can be a winning move. Etali also works well with Jaska’s new will, which is a three-drop sorcery that can grant red mana for each card in the opponent’s hand. There are powerful reprints that complement the game, including the fearsome Laelia, the Reforged Blade and Urabrask, the Hidden. Laelia can exile cards and gain counters when the cards are exiled are great for this deck, while Urabrask’s mass haste / forcing enemy creatures into trapped is just awesome on its own.

Outside of exile, the Faldorn deck also contains some amazing land support cards, which search for lands or allow multiple lands to be played in one turn. These include cards such as Cultivate, Escape to the Wilds, Explore, Kodama’s Reach, Nature’s Lure, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Terramorph, and Three Visits. There’s also a fantastic new card in the set, called Venture Forth, which is a four-drop sorcery that allows the player to exile themselves from their library until they draw a land, which is played directly onto the battlefield, and all other cards are placed. at the bottom of the bridge. Venture Forth then gains three time counters, allowing it to be cast again once they run out, with a two-drop cheaper suspend cost to get it into the time counter cycle earlier. . besides being cute Baldur’s Gate Reference: Venture Forth is an amazing early draw that can rack up land throughout the game.

The Faldorn deck contains two Planeswalker cards: Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, and Xenagos the Reveler. Vivien allows the player to play creatures as if they had Flash, which includes those that can be played from exile, giving the player more monsters to surprise the player with, while her +1 ability grants Reach and Vigilance to a creature until the next turn, providing a much-needed counter to fliers. Xenagos can spawn 2/2 satyrs with haste, which supplements Faldorn’s wolves breeding ability, while his +1 grants red or green mana equal to the number of creatures the player has on the field. Both planeswalkers fit the deck perfectly and are great reprint choices.

One of the mechanics of Battle for Baldur’s Gate the set is Adventures, which are secondary effects that have their own cost, and once their effect resolves, the card is exiled, and it can then be cast from exile for its normal cost. Adventures are extremely useful in the Faldorn deck, as the exile ability synergizes well with commanders. There are five creatures in the set with the Adventure effect (Beanstalk Giant, Bonecrusher Giant, Lovestruck Beast, Embereth Shieldbreaker, and Tlincalli Hunter), and they’re all great additions to the game, as they provide a decent cheap effect , and they synergize well with other cards when brought back from exile.

In terms of weakness, the Faldorn deck doesn’t handle flyers well, with only a few cards featuring Reach or Flying traits, which are coupled with a small number of suppressor cards (although there are a few damaging spells). This means that cheap flyers can leave the player in the dust during a game. There is a lack of non-earth guardians, equipment cards, and a small number of artifacts overall. If there’s one disappointing aspect of the Faldorn deck, it’s that it underutilizes some of the mechanics of the Battle for Baldur’s Gate Position. As it stands, the only card in the Faldorn deck that uses a d20 for its effect is Journey to the Lost City, and the only card that grants first strike is the Tome of Sarevok. It feels like a missed opportunity to use one of the most interesting aspects of the Battle for Baldur’s Gate defined, as initiative adds a new layer of strategy to the game, forcing players to engage in an attack where they normally wouldn’t, in order to prevent their opponent from gaining a free advantage.

The Faldorn deck, Dread Wolf Herald is a lot of fun to play, thanks to a ton of add-on abilities that allow the player to draw and play cards. The player has to keep track of a lot of effects at once, which can be a lot for a beginner, but once his effects and the synergy of the different cards start to click, then he becomes a powerful deck with a lot of the damage production. Faldorn herself might not be the best commander in her deck, but the Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald Commander Deck is a joy to play, with the added bonus of amazing reprints for players looking to expand their own decks.

The full list of each Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate pre-built commander decks can be found on the official website Magic: The Gathering website.

The Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate set for Magic: The Gathering will launch on June 10, 2022. The Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald Commander Deck was provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purposes of this review.

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