If I was to compare the Commander games I’ve had in recent years that are over before they even get going, it would dwarf the amount like it in previous years. Commander is fast now, and one of the reasons is that everything is a must-answer threat. The thing is… there’s an easy solution.
MODERN CREATURE DESIGN IS ALL ABOUT THE SNOWBALL
When I was looking over Secrets of Strixhaven, I happened upon this little fella: Molten-Core Maestro. It’s an incredibly strong Goblin. It has Menace, gets bigger when you spellsling, and then eventually gives you more mana than you know what to do with. It’s the kind of creature that’s begging to be removed, except for the fact you only have the one removal spell – and nobody has played their Commander yet.
In years gone by, early game mana dorks and engines were quickly hounded off the board by wraths. If you wanted mana? You used land ramp – and if you weren’t in green, that was Wayfarer’s Bauble, Sword of the Animist and the like. If you wanted card draw engines? You played enchantments. That’s not to say that creature synergies were entirely ignored, either – you just diversified your investment into the board because you knew that not all of it would survive through the mid-game.
What’s more, it’s not just three drops and Commanders that you have to worry about taking over a game early anymore. Two drops have been getting progressively more insane as time goes on, and in the space of three years we’ve gone from Metastatic Evangel to Badgermole Cub to Bitterbloom Bearer. All of these two drops are a nightmare to see across the board, and all demand answers.
TWO AND THREE DROPS DICTATE GAMES
Big splashy creatures tend to be what excites the average casual player – and even many format veterans, who just want to cast their fatties in a game that feels worth shuffling up and setting up for. Haymakers tend to be the reserve of green decks and reanimator decks now, though, with mana curves getting exceedingly lean.
The “must answer” aspect of modern creature design marches on, and three drops now come down and threaten the ability to Channel later in the game. Yes, to cast a spell that’s banned for being too strong. Yeah, you have a bit of time before it takes over the game – but is that really any different to how other three-drop menaces of the format already operate?
Academy Manufactor. Scute Swarm. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar. All demand answering before they get out of hand. Just like Yavimaya Bloomsage, they need a few turns to truly pop off. We know they’re must answer. Either they’re answered, or the game is over.
Not all three drops are the same. Some come down and dictate the direction of a game with the knowledge that they’re very unlikely to be removed – there’s always a bigger fish, right? Well, turns out it’s the Piranhas you have to watch out for, not the Sharks. Three drops quietly win games of Commander, after all.
That design trend is showing no sign of stopping, either. A Temur Battlecrier tends to be the glue card that allows Eshki or Ureni to pop off. Grave Researcher is going to be giving a Reanimate every turn 90% of the time. Dreamtide Whale… don’t get me started on Dreamtide Whale. It won’t Vanish on its own, and it’s basically a proliferate engine that’s also a freakin’ 7/5. It’s insane. Just like every other card mentioned so far, it needs removing on sight.
WHAT IF EVERY COMMANDER WAS KILL ON SIGHT?
It’s a scenario you don’t even have to imagine. It’s here. We’re living it.
You rock up to a Commander pod, and you see Tifa Lockhart, Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist, and Hope Estheim. While your deck is built to power out your four mana Commander earlier, you’re not even sure which opposing Commander to use removal on. While nobody serious is calling any of these a Bracket 2 deck, a lot of Bracket 3 decks are going to struggle to deal with the immediate onslaught of value they can snowball with. While you’re playing a mana rock, these Commanders are hitting the board and ready to take names. Firing off a removal spell on a crucial turn you’d rather be catching up on feels rough.
Another pod that evening might be Mendicant Core, Guidelight, Ragost, Deft Gastronaut and Sythis, Harvest’s Hand. While they’re all a little slower than the other decks, it’s still a massive problem if you’re not equipped to deal with this kind of table. How do you decide whether to remove Mendicant or Sythis, and when? Do you just ignore Ragost, and how long for?
Thankfully, there’s a very easy answer – you just need to get comfortable playing wraths again.
MODERN CREATURE DESIGN IS BEGGING YOU TO BOARDWIPE
Listen, I don’t want to hear it. I agree – three plus wraths at the end of the night isn’t fun. So just let someone ahead on board win instead of taking the wraths out of your deck. Decks don’t struggle to turn the corner anymore, which is evidenced by the fact that it can feel like taking the turn off to wrath in the first place. It’s a self-perpetuating problem, though, and until board wipes are normalized – until not getting to do the thing if the “thing” is stomping the table is normalized – the problem will persist.
I wrote a thread on BlueSky the other week talking about velocity and power creep. One of the conclusions I came to was that B2 & B3 have become somewhat homogenized, and that we’re effectively moving toward three types of Commander play: cEDH, Combo+interaction EDH, and Solitaire Eurogame EDH. To be clear, that last one is a death knell for battlecruiser playstyles outside of your regular playgroup, and you should be concerned about how to keep the Commander spirit alive in pickup games.
Despite many people saying a good game of Commander is one where “everyone gets to do the thing”, that’s not what they actually mean. They don’t mean everyone sitting, siloed, building their boards in peace. They mean that everyone has a chance to vie for pole position; that the game had texture; that it wasn’t over in a dull way. Commander was never about everyone getting to do the thing. It was about playing cards that are too slow for 60-card Constructed, about building a deck with a manner of self-expression that showed you figured out how to make your Commander work, with style – not about how you built a shopping list of cards designed to make your Commander pop off.
Modern creature design isn’t going to suddenly pare back and stop giving us busted cards. The Commander format’s biggest draw – access to a massive pool of cards – isn’t about to change any time soon. Those cards exist, and are in the format forever (unless they see a ban, which most of them won’t). Yesterday’s snowball threat might have been Faldorn. Today it’s Eshki. Either way, not answering the board seals your fate.
THE ANTIDOTE IS TO PLAY MORE SWEEPERS
If you want to keep your Bracket 2 games going that extra length, and you also wouldn’t mind playing a slightly longer B3 game? Well, the antidote is just to play more wraths. You can’t play enough single-target removal to answer everything, and even if the whole table is running a good amount, you still need to be able to get the massive mana trade from casting a wrath in order to deal with multiple problems that are developing at the same time.
Cheap wraths are more accessible than ever. Mainstays like Toxic Deluge, Blasphemous Act and Vanquish the Horde need to be bolstered with other great wraths in your 99.
Brotherhood’s End is a favorite of mine, as it’s delightfully modal. A good Bloodline Bulling can make short work of early leads, too. And ask yourself this: on what turn is Hour of Revelation cost reduced in 2026? The answer might surprise you.
END STEP
A good Commander game is one where heroes and villains rise and fall. It’s a game only when interaction is plentiful, and the balance of power tips multiple times. We’re all looking for that Goldilocks game, but we’re not going to find it if we don’t embrace the roots of Commander.
If there’s a card that sums up where I want to be in Commander these days, it’s Fall of the First Civilization. It comes down to help another player who might be punching up, it gets rid of a Sol Ring, and it acts as a rattlesnake to slow deployment, all while punishing anyone who vomits their hand into play. Great games of Commander are out there to be had – you just have to put the work in to get them. You can’t run even more single-target removal, so dig out those sweepers.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.