Dark Ascension is the second set in the original Innistrad Block. Released in 2012, the set is filled with lots of spooky creatures of the night, as all Innistrad sets are. With Innistrad Remastered on the horizon, it’s a good time to take a look back at one of the very first sets that takes place on this popular plane.
There are a few Dark Ascension cards that are quite heavily played in Commander. Faithless Looting is one of the best ways to rip through your deck and load your graveyard, Vault of the Archangel is a great utility land that offers some impressive keywords, and Gravecrawler is one of the best Zombies ever printed as a result of its ability to continuously come back to the graveyard.
However, there are also some hidden gems in Dark Ascension. In this article, I’m going to take a look at 5 cards from the set that you should seriously consider the next time you’re building a Commander deck.
SÉANCE
Played in .007% of White Decks on EDHRec
This Enchantment’s ability to spit out a free token every turn is certainly enticing. It does take some set up. After all, you need to have a creature card in your graveyard or it doesn’t do anything. And, whatever creature you get back generally isn’t going to have an opportunity to attack, since it gets exiled at the beginning of the next step.
However, there are still some interesting things you can do with this. For one thing, you can treat it as a graveyard-oriented way to rebuy an “enters” trigger. This gets especially spicy with very expensive creatures who have powerful ones. Getting Craterhoof Behemoth or Moonshaker Cavalry’s abilities ahead of schedule can win a whole lot of games. As can getting the trigger two turns in a row.
You can also use Séance in a token deck that has ways to double its token production. Only the “main” copy of the token gets exiled, so if you have something like Doubling Season in play, you get to hold on to a token copy past the beginning of the next end step.
If your commander is Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice or Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds, your Commander even has a built-in way to abuse Séance.
FALKENRATH ARISTOCRAT
Played in .039% of Rakdos Decks on EDHRec
Of all the underplayed cards in today’s article this one was the most shocking to me. While it’s true the stat-line is a bit awkward, the Aristocrat’s activated ability is incredibly strong. Not only because it means the Aristocrat can become indestructible at any time, either.
Free sacrifice effects are great with any Commander that has payoffs for sacrificing stuff – like Juri, Master of the Revue or Korvold. Using a Commander like that also makes it very easy to include combos that let you sacrifice a permanent as many times as you want in a turn. There are many combos where you can set this up. One of the easiest ways is to use the aforementioned Gravecrawler.
If you have the Gravecrawler and Pitiless Plunderer in play, you can sacrifice the crawler to the Aristocrat, get a treasure from the Plunderer and recast the Zombie. You can do this as many times as you want. You do need to have a Zombie in play too, but that’s hardly a huge ask in a Rakdos deck.
GERALF’S MESSENGER
Played in .04% of Black Decks on EDHRec
Falkenrath Aristocrat isn’t the only card in the set with some serious untapped combo potential. Geralf’s Messenger is also a great combo piece. It’s also certainly a good card in its own right, since you end up spending only three mana for a 3/2 and a 4/3, while an opponent also loses 4 life.
An Undying creature will always come back from the graveyard when it dies, provided it doesn’t have a +1/+1 counter on it. This means c with Undying all combo really well with cards that put -1/-1 counters on them, because (somewhat counterintuitively) +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out. So if Geralf’s Messenger has returned from the graveyard with a counter, if you put a -1/-1 counter on it it will have no counters at all.
This allows you to sacrifice the Messenger as many times as you’d like, and because it makes your opponent lose 2 life every time it comes back, this also means it can kill all of your opponents if you get it in the right loop.
The most famous way to do this is with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. You can pay 1 life and sacrifice another creature to put a -1/-1 counter on one of your creatures. So, provided you have two creatures with Undying in play, you can create an infinite loop. Ideally, you also have Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat in play, so that you don’t run out of life from paying for the ability.
While it’s not quite as easy to go infinite, the Messenger also plays quite well with Ghave, Guru of Spores. While he doesn’t do anything with -1/-1 counters, he can remove +1/+1 counters from creatures for value. He also comes with a built-in way to sacrifice creatures. So, for every two mana you have in a turn, you can sacrifice the Messenger while getting a +1/+1 counter and a 1/1 token every time you do. That’s quite the value engine. And, If you throw in Ashnod’s Altar, the combo can truly go infinite.
ALTAR OF THE LOST
Played in .0007% of Decks on EDHRec
This mana rock is only three mana and can tap for two mana in any combination of colors. That’s nuts. What are you people thinking?!
Okay, obviously I’m joking here – but I’m doing it to make a point. This is an inherently powerful card – it’s just also very narrow. Only producing mana for cards with flashback that are in your graveyard is crazy narrow, and means the Altar doesn’t even work with any other graveyard mechanics.
However, there are a few Commanders out there who can unlock Altar of the Lost’s true power. For example, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned gives all your graveyard spells Flashback and Katilda and Lier can grant flashback to spells in your graveyard when you cast Humans.
This definitely shouldn’t be played a ton in Commander – but I think there are one too many zeros in “.0007%.”
CURSE OF EXHAUSTION
Played in .04% of White Decks on EDHRec
Curses made their debut in Innistrad Block, and there are a ton of great ones out there. However, Curse of Exhaustion is being overlooked.
While it’s true White has plenty of ways of making it so the player can’t cast more than one spell a turn, Curse of Exhaustion is the only way to make this effect one-sided, unlike Archon of Emeria, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Rule of Law.
There are many situations where you prefer cards that make it so none of your opponents can play more than one spell a turn, and you’re willing to take the hit yourself in order to make that happen. But there are also many situations where shutting down the player most likely to try to cast multiple spells in a turn, while retaining your own ability to cast multiple spells is better.
For example, if you’re playing a Commander like Sythis, you really want to be able to cast as many enchantments a turn so you can keep drawing cards and gaining life. So, using a symmetrical Enchantment really isn’t in your best interest – and using Curse of Exhaustion is.
END STEP
Those are my picks for the most underrated Commander cards in Dark Ascension. It will be interesting to see if we get reprints of any of these in Innistrad Remastered.
Do you think I left any cards out? Let me know over on X.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.