Boros Should Not Be Boring

As a Commander player, I was excited to see all the new spoilers for Conspiracy: Take the Crown since the first Conspiracy set was full of great new Commander cards, including awesome new Legendary Creatures, along with sweet reprints. And so far, the spoilers have been great, there are already a bunch of new cards that will definitely see major play in Commander. However, the one glaring thing about this set, and honestly most sets since Wizards has acknowledged the existence of the format, is this:

Ugh, not again.

Hey look! Another Red-White Legendary Creature that cares about attacking! It’s not like we don’t have a ton of these already or anything. Oh wait, we do:

Aurelia, the Warleader

Tajic, Blade of the Legion

Iroas, God of Victory

Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas

Anax and Cymede

Anya, Merciless Angel

Basandra, Battle Seraph

Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran

In fact, out of the 14 previous Legendary Creatures that have a Red-White color identity, 9 directly care about attacking. Out of the other 5, only Brion Stoutarm has little synergy with attacking. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight makes your attacks better. Archangel Avacyn can save your attacking creatures, same for Razia, Boros Archangel. And Munda, Ambush Leader is just trash because the best Allies are in other colors.

So when building a Boros Commander deck, you have two options: Brion or Attacking. Keep in mind that Red-White is the worst color pair already in Commander, and not because of its Legendaries, but because it lacks the ability to draw cards.

What’s funny about this is that Sultai, the color combination of Blue-Black-Green, which only has 5 current Commanders but yet all of them are unique. See for yourself. To add insult to injury, the upcoming Conspiracy set added another very different Commander for this combination:

Unique and flavorful? What a country!

Why is it that they can get Sultai right and Boros so, so wrong? Is someone at Wizards of the Coast actively trying to force Boros to be only about attacking? I don’t know, but what I do know is that there are many ways to make a unique Boros Commander that fits the color pair’s philosophy without making your combat important. Here are three suggestions:

1) An Archer from Fate stay/night-like character that can “forge” equipment out of your library and put it into play, possibly while dealing damage to creatures/players.

2) A reverse Soulfire Grand Master that deals damage to things whenever and instant or sorcery you control gains you life. Makes a bunch of otherwise useless life gain spells into Commander monsters.

3) A warlord that can essentially Master Warcraft during other players turns.

There are a lot of unique effects in Red-White. C’Mon Wizards, let’s get a few on some Legendary Creatures.