Potential Commander Staples from Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Thunder Road

Hey y’all greenhorns and cowpokes! Yee haw! Western slang! Welcome to Outlaws of Thunder Junction, where the best cards are thrice as good as others and crimes are plentiful and encouraged. Prices are still settling from prerelease, but here are a few to pick up as soon as you can, before their value ventures just over the horizon and out of reach.

Three Steps Ahead & Great Train Heist

Spree is the most buzzed-about mechanic to roll out of Thunder Junction for its sheer flexibility and the fact that the options its cards represent are, actually, all pretty good for a change. Some of the better ones, like Final Showdown, are pretty expensive just after release, but Three Steps Ahead and Great Train Heist remain pretty affordable throughout extreme price fluctuation.

Three Steps Ahead would be awful if only two of the three modes had been printed. Consider You Find the Villains' Lair from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, which offers a counterspell or a looting effect for the rate of Cancel or a worse Divination. It’s not a playable card, even with the flexibility it affords. Meanwhile, Cancel, worse Divination, and an instant-speed Phyrexian Metamorph makes for a fantastic collection of tools. Holding back for a turn to leave counterspell mana up is usually a dicey proposition in Commander, but with the backup abilities to either copy your best thing (or simply an Arcane Signet) or dig into your deck at the end of your opponent’s turn keeps your tempo going.

Great Train Heist is a bit more unambiguous in its usefulness. Consider Relentless Assault, a $5 card that accomplishes the same thing as only a single mode of Great Train Heist but at sorcery speed. With absolutely no downside and a much cheaper price, you can tack on an OK anthem or a roundabout, slow version of ramp—neither of which are all that appealing, but the opportunity cost is literally zero. Extra combat step cards are at a premium in Commander, but having one in your hand without much of a board state represents a significant disadvantage. At least Great Train Heist returns your mana investment pretty easily, and it’s not too difficult to go up one or two Treasures.

Grab either one, or ideally both, while packs are being cracked at a rapid rate.

STATUS: Two new modal staples

Three Steps Ahead	CardKingdom $4.49	TCGPlayer $3.00
Three Steps Ahead (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $3.69
Great Train Heist	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $2.00
Great Train Heist (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $2.38

Another Round

Blink effects are extremely strong in Commander and enable wins by incremental advantage, but there are few cards with the ability to overrun opponents in one fell swoop with a turbo-Ephemerate.

Another Round might be the white finisher we need. Moonshaker Cavalry, while potentially dominating, doesn’t seem to have quite taken off (probably due to white’s inability to tutor it right onto the battlefield), and Another Round attacks opponents along a different axis. Three mana gets you a Yorion ETB, five mana offers two of them, and everything after that becomes quite nutty without much effort. The card requires a bit of a build-around to really pop, but in the right deck, a late-game cast with X=3 is probably GG.

At $0.25, this card is criminally underpriced.

STATUS: Very specific but powerful finisher

Another Round	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.50
Another Round (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $1.00

Duelist of the Mind

Speaking of criminals…Duelist of the Mind is a bit more speculative on my part; I’m basing my thoughts on how easy it seems to trigger the “commit a crime” mechanic on anyone’s turn. Heck, a lot of Commanders can go on veritable crime sprees on activated abilities alone. After the first loot or two, you’ve basically earned back your tempo, and a two mana 1/3 vigilant flyer (assuming you only draw once, during your draw step) isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, either.

Ledger Shredder, it is not. But that card is worth $15, and Duelist of the Mind, at $1, is certainly capable of pulling 1/15th of the weight of a Ledger Shredder. Seems like a solid role-player with the potential for a lot of upside in certain decks.

STATUS: Not a staple, but potentially not not a staple, either

Duelist of the Mind	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $1.28
Duelist of the Mind (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $2.79	TCGPlayer $1.61

Outlaw and Order

While many of the cards in Outlaws of Thunder Junction will find homes, I’m curious which will emerge as the clear winners from the set. Any thoughts? Versatility is obviously what makes a card great in Commander, but it doesn’t necessarily present as a shiny new toy in the way something like Roaming Throne does. I’m excited to see what emerges victorious from the new set—and to learn which new cards are making their way into your decks, ASAP.

Further Reading:

The Best New Cards From Thunder Junction, and More!

Hidden Gems for Obeka

Will Outlaws of Thunder Junction Affect Modern?