After a few teasing spoilers and a lot of excitement, Wizards of the Coast has finally revealed its latest deck. Released via Secret Lair, this new Commander deck features gorgeous art, staple reprints, and remarkably compelling value. Supporting one of the most popular archetypes in Commander it’s safe to say that excitement is high for this deck.
To sate this growing excitement, Wizards has now revealed the entire decklist for Raining Cats and Dogs. Set to be released on the 22nd of January at 9 AM PT, this deck has a lot of expectations to live up to. With a $149.99 price tag, you’d certainly hope it’ll be powerful and jam-packed full of value. Thankfully for money-conscious players, it seems you’re definitely getting your money’s worth with this deck.
New Stunning Secret Lair Spoilers!
To finish off this deck’s slow spoiler season, Wizards showcased the last remaining Secret Lair cards. Offering gorgeous, and totally adorable, new art, these cards are definitely the deck’s price jewels. Unfortunately, however, the latest cards to be revealed, a pair of tokens, might not be what players were hoping for.
For starters, as you can see above, the new Cat and Dog tokens by Allison Carl are utterly adorable. As a result of these good looks, you may understandably want to own quite a few of these Tokens. Considering that
Rin and Seri, Inseparable
Rin and Seri, Inseparable
Whenever you cast a Dog spell, create a 1/1 green Cat creature token.
Whenever you cast a Cat spell, create a 1/1 white Dog creature token.
{R}{G}{W}, {T}: Rin and Seri deals damage to any target equal to the number of Dogs you control. You gain life equal to the number of Cats you control.
are Token-based, this seems like a necessity. Unfortunately, however, each deck only contains two.
As explained by Wizards of the Coast, each Raining Cats and Dogs deck only includes two tokens with new art. These are packaged alongside 11 other tokens from a variety of recent sets. Since these tokens offer Cat Beasts, Shapeshifters, and Rats, these tokens are useful, however, it’s nonetheless disappointing. If every land in the deck has stunning Secret Lair art, why can’t the tokens?
Thankfully, while the tokens may be so good they’re disappointing, they’re hardly the only Secret Lair cards in this deck. Annointed Procession, for instance, was also technically revealed today. As a $45 reprint with amazing new reversible art, this is definitely something to be excited about. Technically, however, we have seen it before thanks to an accidental early reveal, so we can’t exactly call it new.
What we can call new, however, is the unreleased Sol Ring that has now been confirmed for the deck. Right now, sadly, we don’t know exactly what this Sol Ring will look like, however, we do know it has reversible artwork. Since it’s one of the deck’s new Secret Lair cards, hopefully, it will look utterly fantastic.
Fitting, Functional, and Fantastic Reprints!
As we mentioned before, alongside showcasing the new Secret Lair cards, Wizards also debuted the entire decklist. This means MTG players finally know what they’re in for on Monday. With $270 of value contained within the deck, it seems MTG players are in for a seriously good deal!
As expected, a large part of this enticing value is made up by the new Secret Lair cards. Comprising $86 of value on their own, these cards are impressive, however, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to the expected scarcity of this deck, and the gorgeous art, these new copies may well sell for significantly more.
While we may not know the final resting value of the new Secret Lair cards, we can at least analyze the known reprints. Thankfully, here Raining Cats and Dogs doesn’t disappoint either, as there are plenty of Commander staples. Costing around $15 each,
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Vigilance
Whenever Brimaz attacks, create a 1/1 white Cat Soldier creature token with vigilance that's attacking.
Whenever Brimaz blocks a creature, create a 1/1 white Cat Soldier creature token with vigilance that's blocking that creature.
and
Qasali Slingers
Qasali Slingers
Reach
Whenever this creature or another Cat you control enters, you may destroy target artifact or enchantment.
are both getting reprinted.
Alongside these staples cats, this Secret Lair deck also features a staple Naya land
Jetmir’s Garden
Jetmir’s Garden
({T}: Add {R}, {G}, or {W}.)
This land enters tapped.
Cycling {3} ({3}, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
. Currently costing around $23, this reprint is great to see. While they’re not quite as expensive, the same is true of
Lurking Predators
Lurking Predators
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a creature card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, you may put that card on the bottom of your library.
,
Highcliff Felidar
Highcliff Felidar
Vigilance
When this creature enters, for each opponent, choose a creature with the greatest power among creatures that player controls. Destroy those creatures.
, and
Skullclamp
Skullclamp
Equipped creature gets +1/-1.
Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards.
Equip {1}
.
Typically selling for $12, $8, and $7.50 respectively, there’s no doubt that the Raining Cats and Dogs deck has some great reprints. As nice as these are from a value perspective, however, you’ll likely not be pulling this deck apart. Rather than selling it for scraps, this deck is, first and foremost, designed to be played with. Considering it seems incredibly well made, it would be a real shame not to do that.
What Was Missed
Since both Cats and Dogs are well-established archetypes in Commander, there’s a lot Wizards had to get right. Thankfully, however, it seems they’ve mostly ticked all the boxes that players could want. With only a few cards being missed, this $150 deck appears to be well worth the money.
On the cat side of things, unfortunately, a few staples haven’t been included in this deck. Capable of being a massive threat
Pride Sovereign
Pride Sovereign
This creature gets +1/+1 for each other Cat you control.
{W}, {T}, Exert this creature: Create two 1/1 white Cat creature tokens with lifelink. (An exerted creature won't untap during your next untap step.)
is an incredibly popular card in Cat Typal decks. The same is true of
Prowling Serpopard
Prowling Serpopard
This spell can't be countered.
Creature spells you control can't be countered.
which offers some much-needed protection. Thankfully, at just $3 and $2 each, buying these cards hardly breaks the bank.
For better or worse, while a few fan-favorite Cats were missed, not many Dogs were. This is largely thanks to there not being a whole lot of Commander playable Dogs in MTG. That being said, however,
Selfless Savior
Selfless Savior
Sacrifice this creature: Another target creature you control gains indestructible until end of turn. (Damage and effects that say "destroy" don't destroy it.)
was missed, but they could be added in for cheap. Alternatively, for a bit of weird fun, you could throw in
Comet, Stellar Pup
Comet, Stellar Pup
0: Roll a six-sided die.
1 or 2 — [+2], then create two 1/1 green Squirrel creature tokens. They gain haste until end of turn.
3 — [−1], then return a card with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to your hand.
4 or 5 — Comet deals damage equal to the number of loyalty counters on him to a creature or player, then [−2].
6 — [+1], and you may activate Comet's loyalty ability two more times this turn.
as a flavorful Planeswalker.
Speaking of Planeswalkers, this deck doesn’t have any right out of the box. Initially, this might seem like an odd exclusion, however, Planeswalkers are hardly vital. If you wanted to add some,
Ajani, the Greathearted
Ajani, the Greathearted
Creatures you control have vigilance.
+1: You gain 3 life.
−2: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control and a loyalty counter on each other planeswalker you control.
is a compelling choice thanks to their go-wide buffs. Similarly,
Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Ajani, Caller of the Pride
+1: Put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
−3: Target creature gains flying and double strike until end of turn.
−8: Create X 2/2 white Cat creature tokens, where X is your life total.
can potentially build a massive board, provided you activate their ultimate.
At the end of the day, while it’s very possible to say that some cards have been missed, all in all, the deck looks great. So much so, in fact, that we can’t wait for January 22nd to roll around next week.
Prepare for Trouble and Make It Double Sided
Ultimately, since Raining Cats and Dogs looks so good, I’ll definitely be in line to buy one. This, however, is going to be the real make-or-break moment for the deck. Previously, Secret Lair Commander decks have been incredibly popular, selling out in an instant. Between scalpers, excited customers, and vendors all snapping up copies, just buying a deck can be difficult.
Right now, sadly, we don’t know exactly how many copies of this deck have been produced, or any systems Wizards has put in place. If we’re hopeful, Wizards will ensure that scalpers can’t ruin the fun, however, a sale is a sale. For better or worse, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens, and hope for the best.
As always, the Raining Cats and Dogs deck will be sold via the Secret Lair website. Good luck!
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