(High Noon | Art by Eduardo Francisco)

Bring the Thunder!

Howdy, partners! Outlaws of Thunder Junction has been out for two weeks now. That means it's time for a list of the top 10 most played Commander cards from the new set. OTJ may be the newest hotness, but that hasn't stopped EDH gamers from combing through the card file and adding a bevvy of new cards to their decks.

Personally, I've been playing infinite matches of OTJ Draft and Sealed on Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO), but I'll soon dip my toes into the new multiplayer Commander leagues that MTGO debuted with this set. When I do that, I'll be sure to look back through this article and browse EDHREC to help me decide which new cards to try in my decks.

I hope this article helps you as well!

 

10. Hell to Pay

This exciting new Fireball variant trades the ability to go to the dome for scaling mana generation. Its potential to ramp you up and give you a bunch of material for sacrifice or artifacts-matter synergies should make this an attractive option for decks that don't necessarily want to stock up on burn spells with X in their cost. Commanders like Magus Lucea Kane that work well with X spells with love having access to this, but so will Treasure-hoarders like Magda, Brazen Outlaw and EDH debutants Vihaan, Goldwaker and Olivia, Opulent Outlaw.

 

Of course, you don't need to be doing anything with Treasures other than sacrificing them for different colors of money. Since you're playing a lot of ramp spells in multicolor decks anyway, you can use a supercharged Hell to Pay to help you cast a bunch of Dragon creatures out of Tiamat, among other possibilities.

 

 

9. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower

 

'Ol Bill here is an incredible beating in Limited Magic. He probably does just enough in a two-mana package to see play in the 100-card format as well. EDHREC data shows the Spine Sower being slotted into decks headed by commanders that synergize well with +1/+1 counters. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, Shalai and Hallar, and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave are at the top of that list.

 

Interestingly, Bristly Bill is seeing the most play early on in Agatha of the Vile Cauldron decks, where his expensive-but-potent activated ability can really go wild at a discounted rate. And while his first ability will get you an early ticket on the counter train, you really want to play him alongside cards that make the doubling effect good, like Avenger of Zendikar and Felidar Retreat.

8. Three Steps Ahead

 

If I may go on a tangent, Kicker has always been one of the best mechanics in Magic regardless of the format. Getting more out of your spells when you have extra mana lying around is just a great way to gain an advantage in a game.

Spree is a sweet twist on the classic formula because, instead of being locked into a base effect with the option to pay a Kicker cost, you get to invest your mana into whichever combination of effects will help you the most at the time.

Now, I love a Cancel with upside, and Three Steps Ahead offers loads of that, but calling it a Cancel undersells why the card deserves its place among the top 10 most played cards from this set. Spree lets you pay three mana to counter a spell, but it also lets you pay four mana to copy your best creature or artifact, or it lets you pay eight to do everything printed on the card and rack up a huge advantage. I haven't even listed all the permutations of what this card can do! In the end, I don't need to, because EDH players have already started including this card in their decks. Its modal formatting means it's a stellar inclusion in Riku of Many Paths, but I think just about any controlling blue deck can make good use of its versatility.

 

7. Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius

 

This 2/3 Bear Druid is happy to help any mage reaching into the honeypot of goodness that is casting spells from zones other than your hand. Doc Aurlock is a pretty open-ended card that you can slot into any deck that plays around with mechanics like Plot from OTJ, Foretell, Adventures, Flashback, and more.

There are also a million (probably an accurate estimate) individual cards that benefit from the discount the Doc gives you, including potential commanders Grolnok, the Omnivore, Yasmin Khan and The Thirteenth Doctor, and Muldrotha, the Gravetide.

As an aside, I love cards like the Grizzled Genius that work well in the context of a set but also power up strategies from across Magic's history. You do need to be deep into the exile-or-graveyard-shenanigans to get value out of Aurlock, but enough effects like that exist that this shouldn't be too difficult.

6. Annie Joins Up

 

This Legendary Enchantment and the other members of its cycle from OTJ remind me of the Oath spells from Oath of the Gatewatch, Like its predecessors, Annie Joins Up does something upfront and sticks around to generate value as long as you build around it correctly. Fortunately, EDH is the "build-around-it-correctly" format, so this card is going to do a lot of work in red, white, and green-based decks that care about Legendary creatures.

The possibilities are endless, so I'm glad we can check the EDHREC data to see which commanders are making the most of Annie Joins Up. Rocco, Street Chef, Hazezon, Shaper of Sand, Jodah, the Unifier, and Aragorn, the Uniter have all emerged as popular decks to play this card in, with each option boasting splashy triggers just begging to be doubled.

One thing I will not is that, when doubling triggers, you usually want to be building around more effects that play to the board rather than abilities that simply draw cards. That's because drawing six cards, for example, isn't twice as good as drawing three—unless you have copious amounts of mana to power your cards out. I'd much rather double my tokens in play than end the turn with a full grip.

5. Return the Favor

Spree strikes again, and not for the last time on this list! Return the Favor is one of the most flexible and powerful copy effects we've seen so far, making it a strong inclusion in spell-based decks like Hinata, Dawn-Crowned and alongside Strixhaven Magecraft payoffs like Veyran, Voice of Duality.

Copying abilities as well makes it a decent inclusion in a wide range of decks. It also offers you the dream scenario of protecting your commander from a removal spell and blasting two opposing creatures instead. This is the type of card that creates awesome stories at the table, and that makes it one of my favorite cards on this list.

4. Insatiable Avarice

Vampiric Tutor made it to the list of top 10 most played mono-black cards, so it's unsurprising to see this Spree'd-up variant seeing early play out of Outlaws. Sure, paying three mana at sorcery-speed is much worse than the OG Vamp effect. But also having the option to cast a super-Sign in Blood is just the kind of utility this card needed to break into the format.

Of course, what Insatiable Avarice really wants you to do is pay five mana to tutor your best card straight into your hand, accompanied by two random cards and a little loss of life. I can't get enough of how this mechanic gives you flexible options for cheap, while also giving you access to a synergistic package of effects later in the game. You don't really need to build around this card to be good, but it does feel kind of ridiculous alongside K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and Rowan, Scion of War, among other commander options.

3. Lavaspur Boots

Aside from being a mandatory inclusion in Felix Five-Boots, other EDH decks have more attractive footwear options to protect important creatures besides Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves. Angelo Guerrera summed up Lavaspur Boots' place in the format perfectly in his OTJ set review. All I'll add is that costing one to cast also makes choosing between the three more difficult. It's a great problem for Commander players to have!

2. Tinybones, the Pickpocket

 

 

Casting your opponents' cards is by now a bread-and-butter in the Grixis colors (blue, black, and red), so much so that you can build around a commander like Don Andres, the Renegade that pays you off for it. Tinybones, this lil' cutie, gives you this ability for just a single mana upfront. And we all know how good Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is, even as a one-drop in this haymaker format.

Notably, Tinybones is a Rogue, which also makes them an outlaw. This won't matter that often in EDH, but having cheap outlaws in a Laughing Jasper Flint deck turbocharges his own larceny ability. All you need is one stolen threat to make the, well, tiny investment worth it, and if you can ever use removal and evasion-granting spells to trigger them multiple times, well, your opponents will surely have a bone to pick with you.

1. Great Train Heist

I've developed the hypothesis that red cards are great candidates to take pole position on lists of top 10 most played cards from recent formats. That's because red—in my opinion at least—was for a long time a pretty narrow color, focused on direct damage, aggro, and a handful of other effects. While this laser-focus has made the color ideal for tournament decks in Standard and older Constructed formats, red lagged behind other colors in multiplayer EDH.

We've seen a pretty big course-correction though, with red getting a ton of Treasure producers and card advantage in the form of "impulsive draw" effects.

Still, cards like Demand Answers from MKM and now Great Train Heist end up seeing a lot of play because they continue to broaden what the color can contribute to a deck. As another Spree card, the Train Heist does double duty as a finisher in a go-wide deck and as a way to get more attack triggers in decks like Isshin, Two Heavens as One and Otharri, Suns' Glory. It even gives you the midgame buyout option of paying two red mana to generate several Treasures for use later. There's really nothing to dislike about this card and a lot of upside that a lot of decks playing red would happily utilize.

We've Reached a Crucial Juncture...

It's high noon somewhere, and that means it's time to wrap up this review od the top 10 most played cards from OTJ! I feel like you could say this about every set, but Outlaws looks to be packed with a great mix of downright powerful effects and flexible roleplayers for EDH. I think Spree is one of the best all-around mechanics we've seen in a while, especially since it's such a great flavor fit on a plane of crime-committing outlaws. Mechanically, the sheer flexibility of many of these Spree cards makes them great in Commander. I'm excited to see whether other examples like Smuggler's Surprise or Lively Dirge will crack the top 10 most played list with enough time.