Now that the entirety of the set has been revealed, it’s clear that Mystery Booster: Commander Edition is one for the hardcore Magic fans. As seen in the initial wave of spoilers revealed during yesterday’s Draft, pretty much every card here is a mechanical or flavorful deep cut. More than any set in years, this one calls back to elements of the game long forgotten by the mainstream.
Rikala, Homarid King, for instance, is a direct reference to the now-defunct MTG Homarids, and their funky tide counter mechanic. It’s also a very capable Simic Commander, with fair uses and combo potential aplenty.
Rikala, Homarid King MTG
As Rikala amasses tide counters, it slowly builds up into a pretty scary anthem effect. If you’re going wide, with token generators like Tendershoot Dryad, then this can give your army a lethal edge after a turn or two. It also makes cards that scale with the power of your creatures, such as Greater Good and Return of the Wildspeaker, particularly tasty.
The big draw with Rikala, however, comes when it hits three tide counters, and essentially casts High Tide for a full turn cycle. This is a notoriously busted card, even in Commander, and it can help ramp you into powerhouse finishers like Hullbreaker Horror and Craterhoof Behemoth with ease. Since it persists through opponents’ turns, it also lets you cast interaction like Counterspell off of less mana than usual.
Having access to High Tide in the command zone also lets you easily pull off a range of infinite combo lines. Palinchron creates an easy two-card combo with Rikala, for example, generating infinite mana and Storm count with its ability active. You can also bring in Magus of the Candelabra and Staff of Domination to draw your entire deck and gain infinite life.
With counter manipulation effects like Chisei, Heart of Oceans and Mister Hyde, Monster Within, you can keep Rikala’s High Tide ability going for longer. This lets you use it as both a value engine and an explosive combo piece, making it great throughout the game. While there’s a lot of competition, Rikala looks like one of the best new legends in Mystery Booster: Commander Edition.
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