Fringe Picks Related To Recent Commander Unbannings
April 22nd brought us updates to the Commander banlist, and boy, are they set to shake things up. A little over a year ago, I wrote about how banned cards could be solid pickups because of their potential to explode in price if they were removed from the list, and while many of the cards are staying where they are, if you speculated on any of the ones that made the cut, then congratulations, because they’ve absolutely skyrocketed in price.
So while the unbanned cards in question -
Sway of the Stars
This unban feels warranted, as it's a ten-mana spell that technically doesn’t outright end the game on the spot, and a single counterspell will leave you tapped out with nothing to show for it. As far as cards that haven’t seen play in Commander for twenty years (I know, right?), this feels like a safe unban with the state of the format as it stands in 2025. For ten mana though, it’s a tough one to cast, which is why I think the decks that’ll take advantage of it the most will be those that rely on suspend.
Three or four turns with suspend can seem like forever in a four-player game though, so getting time counters off Sway the Stars is key to casting it early on.
Coalition Victory
This unban is getting a lot of buzz, and rightfully so, as it’s another “you win the game” card that hasn’t seen the light of day in Commander since 2007, and any time one of these enters the format it garners a lot of attention. But for such an over-the-top card, there are still a good bit of requirements to satisfy. And while getting one of each basic land type and a creature of each color can seem daunting, there are a few cards that make this process more streamlined.
Firstly, we have to satisfy the basic land and creature requirements to resolve Coalition Victory to our benefit, and while shoving as many Triomes and Shocklands into our deck will technically help with this, there are things we can do to further push things in our favor.
Getting creatures of all colors on the field is definitely a bit more cumbersome than basic land types, but that’s where a handful of cards come in to save the day. There are a good amount of cards that change the color of a permanent or spell to a singular other color, but we’re looking for multiple colors, and ones that won’t increase the mana required on the same turn we cast Coalition Victory (this rules out
Then there’s Dream Coat, which technically only makes a creature five colors until end of turn, but at the low low cost of zero mana per activation, meaning you can attach it on prior turns and activate it whenever you need. It's a single printing card from Legends for around $2.50. But my personal favorite is Prismatic Lace, which, for the same mana value of one blue, can perpetually make one of your creatures multicolored at instant speed, meaning you can cast it on your opponents’ end step, take them by surprise, and win with Coalition Victory on the next turn. This one is on the Reserve List too, so we know it will never see a reprint, making for a safe pickup for less than a buck if you need a little push to resolve this win condition.
Plus, if you’re planning on running
Panoptic Mirror
This unban feels the most out of left field, and to be completely honest, seems like an absolutely diabolical choice, given how easy it is to lock players out of the game by putting any extra turn effect under it. Yes, you have to survive until your next upkeep, but in slower games or playgroups that run little interaction, this should prove to not be too much of a problem. And even if you have to tap out to put something under the Mirror, plenty of free counterspells and interaction exist to help it survive rotation.
With the cheapest “no-strings-attached” extra turn spells clocking in at five mana (
On the surface these seem counter-productive, but if you’re running
Would I put these two-mana extra turn spells in a deck with Panoptic Mirror without running Sundial or Obeka as commander? Probably not. And considering Sundial is currently as expensive as it’s ever been, now might not be the best time to pick one up, unless you firmly believe this to be a winning strategy to be widely played in the future that you want to get ahead of. Obeka, Brute Chronologist isn’t going to see any movement from this unbanning, but I thought it would be worth mentioning as a potential strategy - whether it’s viable as a competitive deck or not I can’t say, but I do think there is some potential here. She’s only a quarter, and could quite literally almost not get any cheaper. So if you’re thinking of employing this strategy, why not try her at the helm?
In Conclusion
We’re still early into the unbannings, but these are the cards that jumped out to me as potentially worth picking up that could work with the ones that were removed from the banlist. There’s plenty of choices for Braids and Gifts Ungiven as well, but that’s for another time - potentially down the road when we’ve seen how these cards actually play out in the format.
One thing’s for sure, and that’s that we’re bound to see tons of exciting and novel strategies introduced to Commander due to this, and if anything, the game is sure to be interesting for some time to come.
Further Reading:
Commander Staples From Tarkir: Dragonstorm
Jason Cominetto
Jason is a longtime lover of Magic, falling in love with the game at Seventh Edition, as well as an EDH enthusiast for both casual and competitive metas alike. He's also a screenwriter with a produced feature and plans to proceed with many more creative projects in and out of film. His favorite card is Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, but he firmly believes that Mana Drain is the best card.