Sainio's 7: Underplayed Commander Cards (White) WRITTEN BY Ryan Sainio

Hello everyone, and welcome to my underplayed Commander cards series. In each installment we will be diving into a handful of cards in each color that fly under the radar of the typical Commander playgroup. Today we will be covering White cards, but before we do that, I'd like to lay down the ground rules that I used to form this list:

The card had to appear in less than 3,000 decks on EDHrec (Established cards hit 10k or more).

The list was decided by me, a less-than-optimal Commander player of five years.

I tried my best to steer away from the lists of cards I stumbled upon on other Commander articles and podcasts.

Sol Ring

With that out of the way, let’s get into the thick of it and uncover some sweet Commander gems!

Honestly, this first card didn't surprise me in the least with how unseen it is, but I still think it is a huge oversight. Coming out of Tempest block, the Shadow mechanic comes with a drawback that cannot be overlooked, but with the ability to easily connect and remove two or three enchantments over the course of a game for three mana, how can you go wrong? Additionally, if an opponent is spending mana and a card to remove this, you have the moral victory if nothing else.

This card started replacing Demystify-like spells in my decks around the time Born of the Gods was kicking into high gear, as the multiplayer format rewards renewable resources and non-God Enchantment Creatures meant that there would be a bountiful new supply of targets. Nowadays, with Daxos the Returned running rampant in one of my metas, removing Enchantments and Doomwake Giant becomes imperative. I think this $0.25 card should be seeing more play.

In a world with plenty of enter the battlefield effects running around, it surprises me that the White "gating" creatures from Planar Chaos don't see more play. Maybe they are being overlooked, maybe there are better alternatives when you open up the pool to second and third colors, maybe Planar Chaos is too old for some players; whatever the answer is, a bounce spell on a body can be invaluable in a deck with Allies, Revolt, and/or fragile combo pieces at its core. I say all of this, but Stonecloaker doesn't need to be used solely as a protection spell; since it has Flash, it also works well in Control builds, ensuring that your unused mana doesn't go to waste. Coming in with a spot in 1,000 decks, this card isn't completely overlooked, but with Swords to Plowshares having a ceiling of 22,000 decks, I would say this card has room to grow.

So, cards on the table, no bluffs: I love Samurai. I started playing Magic in 2002—just before Onslaught hit shelves—yet I still feel like I have an abridged knowledge of the game every time someone says they started in Ice Age or Tempest. My early years of the game were Tribal, Artifacts-Matter, and then Japan: The set. I was in love. I think Samurai (and Ninja) deserve to come back, even if not in the same mechanical ways they did during Kamigawa. Removing that bias, I still think Konda is a great card. Is he overcosted by today's standards for creatures? Yes. Does his Indestructibility mean less in a format with an ample supply of Exile effects? Sure. Does he have the ability to win games? No question. I have won more than a few games because my opponents simply didn't have an answer, and Konda was able to both defend my life total and carve their's away. The ability to survive Wrath effects and the added safety once a Swiftfoot Boots has been equipped—plus the benefits of enchanting it with a Lure effect—makes for a great lategame card that your friends/enemies might not be prepared to deal with.

I feel like among players that put in the time to find the gems from Magic's history, this is nothing new. But when my research on EDHrec tells me this has only found a home in 180 submitted decks, ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem. This is a great card in a color it probably shouldn't be in under modern design ideologies, and I think that is important. The reason why a card like Faithless Looting or Withering Boon can be so appealing is that they either don't function the same way as other effects in their colors normally do or the effect isn't really seen at all. White has a small pile of cards that can reanimate like Black, but hardly this cheap at instant speed. Someone manages to topdeck an answer to your commander? Bring it back. Your opponent's Myr Battlesphere or Consecrated Sphinx gets Murdered? Snatch it up!

No one will see this coming out of a mono-White deck and certainly not at instant speed.

In the spirit of Debt of Loyalty but on a smaller scale, Angelic Renewal should be an auto-include in more decks with a high density of enter the battlefield or death triggers. With cards like Starfield of Nyx and Sun Titan available as to help push this card, you have the ability to reanimate any creature you might lose in a turn cycle. In a format like Commander, where on-board tricks have the likelihood to be overlooked if they are not making an immediate impact, this can be a demoralizing effect after the table works to answer you big threat. Combo this with Vedalken Orrery and you have the ability to sneakily blank pointed removal at will. I have recently added this to my land-based Commander deck to great effect as a way to recover important lands that may have gotten destroyed while animated. Plus, if you're an art fanatic, how can you pass on this art?

Next, we have a card representative of an entire overlooked mechanic: Flagbearers. Okay, before my audience jumps on Gatherer, this is admittedly about as niche as it gets: Three cards in a third set—hear me out. Obviously this tribe was a little before my time—appearing in Invasion block and never being seen again—but I can remember scattered copies of Coalition Honor Guard and the like showing up in a few casual decks to muck up people's plans, and those few copies have made their way into decks as the White proto-version of Spellskite. The biggest drawback to this collection of cards is that you have little-to-no control over what spells will be interacting with your creature, as any spell capable of targeting the Honor Guard is obliged to. However, this strategy has often pressed my opponents' sequencing or even their entire turns, as they have had to hold back powerful auras or burn spells until my four-mana 2/4 has been addressed.

Lastly, we have what I would consider one of the most criminally underplayed cards on this list, especially since it saw a reprint four years ago in Modern Masters. This is too far under the public radar. For me, the Legendary Dragons of Kamigawa were very high profile and nearly unavoidable in the cafeteria multiplayer games of my youth, and outside of Kokusho, Yosei was the big man on campus. On the surface, locking down one player at a table of as many as five or six players may seem underpowered, but I think it is a very political card. In my "I'd Tap That" Dakkon Blackblade deck, this card is used to leave the "archenemy" of the game completely open for a rotation and a half of the table. It's a rattlesnake to people afraid of the vindictive crack back. It also combos great with Dismiss into Dream, and it pairs very well with a Blade of Selves or a Mimic Vat.

I have chatted your ears off about White cards for the last few minutes and I hope it was enjoyable. My overall goal with this series is to try to inject some originality back into a format I frequently hear has grown too much into optimal builds and interactions between expensive and harder-to-find cards. I hope to improve throughout this series so much that by the time I complete it, I will have to anal-retentively return back to this point and add another 1,000 words of addendum. Until next time, thank you, and may you cash in before these cards get bought out.*

*These cards will not get bought out.