D&D Favorite Character Gets Her Own Insane MTG Planeswalker Card

Today, Wizards of the Coast kicked off Preview Season for the highly anticipated set Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. This set is a sequel in multiple ways, being a sequel to Commander Legends, and also the 2nd Dungeons & Dragons themed set.

WotC showed off a TON of cards during today’s WeeklyMTG Debut Stream for the set. One of the cards shown afterwards shows a fan favorite D&D character with her own Planeswalker card, and it’s incredible!

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter

Welcome Tasha, the Witch Queen to the party! Tasha is one of the new Planeswalkers in Battle for Baldur’s Gate, and boy does she have a LOT going for her. She’s 5 mana in the Dimir colors, and she has 4 starting Loyalty. The first cool thing about her is that she can be your commander!

Now, let’s look at her abilities. She has a passive ability that creates a 3/3 Demon creature token when you can a spell that you don’t own. Her +1 draws you a card, and then you can exile an instant or sorcery from each of your opponent’s graveyards with a Page counter on it. Her -3 allows you to cast a spell from among the cards you exiled with her +1 for free.

There are two main strategies with Tasha, and we’ll talk about some cards for each. The first is to play into her passive ability, and the second is to leverage her activated abilities as frequently as we can, while also finding ways to fill our opponent’s graveyards with spells. Let’s start with the passive.

The Demon Hordes

Tasha’s passive requires us to cast spells that we don’t own in order to trigger making demons. For this, there are some staple spells that we’ll want to include in our deck to make this happen.

For part of our creature package, we’ll want cards that steal our opponent’s cards and allow us to cast them. Gonti, Lord of Luxury Gonti, Lord of Luxury Deathtouch
When Gonti enters, look at the top four cards of target opponent's library, exile one of them face down, then put the rest on the bottom of that library in a random order. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and mana of any type can be spent to cast that spell. , Xanathar, Guild Kingpin Xanathar, Guild Kingpin At the beginning of your upkeep, choose target opponent. Until end of turn, that player can't cast spells, you may look at the top card of their library any time, you may play the top card of their library, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast spells this way. and Diluvian Primordial Diluvian Primordial Flying
When this creature enters, for each opponent, you may cast up to one target instant or sorcery card from that player's graveyard without paying its mana cost. If a spell cast this way would be put into a graveyard, exile it instead. have triggered abilities that give us this.

Thief of Sanity Thief of Sanity Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, look at the top three cards of that player's library, exile one of them face down, then put the rest into their graveyard. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and mana of any type can be spent to cast that spell. , Nightveil Specter Nightveil Specter Flying
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of their library.
You may play lands and cast spells from among cards exiled with this creature. and Thada Adel, Acquisitor Thada Adel, Acquisitor Islandwalk (This creature can't be blocked as long as defending player controls an Island.)
Whenever Thada Adel deals combat damage to a player, search that player's library for an artifact card and exile it. Then that player shuffles. Until end of turn, you may play that card. are all evasive threats that give us this effect when they deal combat damage to our opponent. We can definitely play some other creatures that steal our opponent’s permanents and spells, but these are definitely required.

Now let’s look at the noncreature spells we’re going to want.

For our noncreature suite, there’s a some really sweet cards in here that we can use. Mind’s Dilation Mind’s Dilation Whenever an opponent casts their first spell each turn, that player exiles the top card of their library. If it's a nonland card, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. is a way for us to almost guarantee that we’re going to cast a card that we don’t own. Same goes for Knowledge Pool Knowledge Pool Imprint — When this artifact enters, each player exiles the top three cards of their library.
Whenever a player casts a spell from their hand, that player exiles it. If the player does, they may cast a spell from among other cards exiled with this artifact without paying its mana cost. . Cunning Rhetoric Cunning Rhetoric Whenever an opponent attacks you and/or one or more planeswalkers you control, exile the top card of that player's library. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it. gives us a layer of protection against our opponents attacking us.

For some spells, Memory Plunder Memory Plunder You may cast target instant or sorcery card from an opponent's graveyard without paying its mana cost. lets us target a really powerful spell that our opponent casts at instant speed. This can allow us to put a speedy blocker into play if we need it. Siphon Insight Siphon Insight Look at the top two cards of target opponent's library. Exile one of them face down and put the other on the bottom of that library. You may play the exiled card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell.
Flashback {1}{U}{B} fills a similar role, but we can pull these cards from our opponent’s library. It also has flashback which is a nice added benefit. Finally Praetor’s Grasp Praetor’s Grasp Search target opponent's library for a card and exile it face down. Then that player shuffles. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled. let’s us tutor our opponent’s library for their strongest spell and we can play that.

Let’s look at the other strategy for Tasha, which is using her abilities.

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Stomp the Yard

So for our second avenue of value, we’re looking to use Tasha’s abilities. There’s a few ways that we can go about this, but at it’s core, the deck aims to be a control shell. Discard spells like Dark Deal Dark Deal Each player discards all the cards in their hand, then draws that many cards minus one. or Siphon Mind hit all opponents. We also want to use Windfall Windfall Each player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way. effects to help refill our hand but fuel our opponent’s graveyard.

We’re also interested in using counter magic in this deck, which will stop our opponent’s plays, and allow us to get play them with Tasha. The other kinds of spells that we could be playing are mill spells that mill half our opponent’s library, or have some other utility. Cards like Traumatize Traumatize Target player mills half their library, rounded down. and Cut Your Losses Cut Your Losses Casualty 2 (As you cast this spell, you may sacrifice a creature with power 2 or greater. When you do, copy this spell and you may choose a new target for the copy.)
Target player mills half their library, rounded down. can do a lot of work at most points in the game. Court of Cunning Court of Cunning When this enchantment enters, you become the monarch.
At the beginning of your upkeep, any number of target players each mill two cards. If you're the monarch, each of those players mills ten cards instead. (To mill a card, a player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.) introduces the Monarch to the game, which is great card advantage for us, but also also mills cards as well.

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Key Support Cards

With these strategies in mind, there are some stellar support cards we’ll want to make sure that we include in our 99. To go along with our Knowledge Pool, cards like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Flash
Creature cards you own that aren't on the battlefield have flash.
Each opponent can cast spells only any time they could cast a sorcery. can lock our opponents out of the game for a near instant win. The Chain Veil The Chain Veil At the beginning of your end step, if you didn't activate a loyalty ability of a planeswalker this turn, you lose 2 life.
{4}, {T}: For each planeswalker you control, you may activate one of its loyalty abilities once this turn as though none of its loyalty abilities have been activated this turn. and Teferi, Temporal Archmage let us get in more activations of Tasha.

Spark Double lets us make a copy of Tasha for additional uses as well, and we can even copy that copy with Clever Impersonator for triple the action.

Lastly, Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk give us additional play with some of our control elements, and our “steal your cards” instants and sorceries.

To fill in the rest of the deck, we want to fill in our removal suite, draw spells, counter magic and other theft effects. We will want a good selection of mana rocks as well, as we’re hoping to cast our opponent’s spells on our turn, but then keep up protection for our stuff.

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Overall, Tasha is shaping to be a super sweet commander, and it gives us hope that Battle for Baldur’s Gate will have some more amazing cards.