5 Underrated Commander Cards from Planar Chaos

Magic’s next in-universe set is Reality Fracture, and a couple of weeks ago I wrote about some of the things we might see in that upcoming set. In doing so, I discussed Planar Chaos, a set that came out in 2007 that had a similar theme – it was all about alternate realities in Magic.

This got me thinking about Planar Chaos on the whole, especially as it pertains to Commander. The set does have several prominent cards. For example, most players are well aware that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is one of the best lands in Magic, Pongify is the best blue spot removal in the game, and Damnation is one of the game’s best sweepers.

However, I think there are also several cards in the set that are currently being overlooked by Commander players, and in this article I’ll take a look at some of these underappreciated cards.

UNDERRATED COMMANDER: RADHA, HEIR TO KELD

There are surprisingly few low-mana value Commanders out there that can straight up tap for completely unrestricted mana, especially with Rofellos banned in the format. She’s not quite as busted as that other legendary elf, but she does do a pretty good impression of him. You can often count on consistently having 4+ mana on turn three thanks to her and if you cast some other ramp spells you can have way more than that. The fact that she can add mana when she attacks is pretty sweet too – she basically had Firebending before it was cool!

All of that makes her a great commander for a Red/Green ramp deck, as she can very quickly give you a mana advantage that can overwhelm your opponents. As with Firebending, you’re going to want to make sure to include some activated abilities and instants to sink that mana into. 

Because you’re already going to be interested in running big scary creatures to ramp into, stuff like Summoning Trap and Chord of Calling can work nicely as ways to cheat those creatures directly onto the battlefield.

REALITY ACID

Reality Acid seems like absolute jank the first time you read it. Vanishing means it’s a super slow removal spell, and that kind of thing doesn’t perform especially well. However, Reality Acid gets really interesting in any deck that’s good at blinking permanents. This is because it makes the controller of the enchanted permanent sacrifice it when the Aura leaves the battlefield. 

Sure, you can wait around for a few turns for the counters to vanish, or you can force Reality Acid to leave the battlefield and then return. This results in the initially enchanted permanent being destroyed, and then you get to choose a new one for Reality Acid to enchant.

Notably, Reality Acid can go after permanents of any type, making it a very flexible card in the right deck. You can even blow up a bunch of lands!

All of that means that Reality Acid should be an automatic inclusion for any Commander who comes with built-in effects that let them blink permanents – like Brago, King Eternal or Yorion, Sky Nomad. These decks will also feature lots of other ways to blink permanents and payoffs for doing it, making Reality Acid even more potent.

WILD PAIR

Wild Pair is a little bit clunky at 6 mana, but once you start tutoring up a creature every time you have a creature enter the battlefield you’ll be more than happy with your investment. This is of course not something that works in every deck, since Wild Pair is pretty particular about what you can grab with it. There are many decks that just don’t have enough creatures with the same stats, but there are also a few fairly notable Commanders who can make great use of this.

The most obvious is probably Duskana, who wants you to fill your deck with 2/2 creatures. You’re probably never going to run out of 2/2s to grab with Wild Pair in that deck.

Less obviously, any Sliver Commander can make great use of Wild Pair. Most slivers are either 1/1s or 2/2s, and because of their various abilities that can be used to buff your board full of slivers, being able to tutor up the right one for a given situation is actually quite powerful.

DREAMSCAPE ARTIST

For the most part, Green has a monopoly on effects that let you search up basic lands and put them into play. However, Dreamscape Artist is the exception to that rule, and in fact it was intentionally designed to be a Blue Harrow within the set’s strange alternate reality.

Dreamscape Artist can search up two basic lands at a time, and they even enter untapped. While discarding a card and sacrificing lands definitely help balance the effect, it’s not that challenging to get value out of those effects either. Basically, if you’re playing a deck that doesn’t have access to Green and likes loading the graveyard and ramping, you should seriously consider Dreamscape Artist.

For example, Commanders like Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer and Runo Stromkirk can both get a lot out of the reclaimer. Oskar can help you cast the cards you discard while also making himself cheaper, and you can discard a creature card with mana value 6 or greater and then put it on top of your library with Runo to make sure he transforms.

MAGUS OF THE COFFERS

Dreamscape Artist is one of many cards in Planar Chaos that reference older Magic cards. There’s also a cycle of “Magus” creatures, all of whom have the ability of one of the most powerful lands in the game. Obviously enough, Magus of the Coffers has the same activated ability as Cabal Coffers.

For the most part, Cabal Coffers is the better card. It’s harder to remove lands than it is creatures. However, if you’re playing a monoblack deck, there’s really no reason that the Magus shouldn’t be included in your deck. It has the potential to give you absolutely insane mana, and that’s exactly what you want in many Commander games.

While it works in any mono-black deck, it becomes especially appealing if you’re using a super expensive Commander like Valgavoth, Terror Eater or Ardyn the Usurper.

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What Planar Chaos cards do you think are underrated? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.