Highlights
- Delayed Blast Fireball: Cheating this card onto the stack maximizes its damage, making it a versatile burn spell.
- Irenicus’s Vile Duplication: This clone effect allows you to double up on your commander, especially powerful when paired with token multipliers.
- Tomb Of Horrors Adventurer: Copying all your spells puts you at a huge advantage, and this card can copy not just spells, but also enchantments and creatures.
There are times when Magic: The Gathering fans get a chance to put their deck-building skills to the test, picking up cards that will bolster their collections and power up their decks. Thankfully, Magic releases sets like Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, where there are tons of incredibly cool cards to accent their decks and legendary creatures to build around.
Sometimes, cards don’t really get a chance to stand out until some time has passed, and other cards have been released to help boost those cards up. There are tons of powerful cards from Battle for Baldur’s Gate, like the cycle of mythic Dragons, but these cards are some of the best singles you can grab for your decks.
10 Delayed Blast Fireball
Here It Comes In 3…2…1…
9 times out of 10, you’re not casting this for three mana. You’re probably not even going to cast it for its foretell cost of six mana. The best way to play Delayed Blast Fireball is by cheating it onto the stack through mechanics like cascade and discover, or through other effects like Impluse-style draw abilities.
Casting it this way bumps its damage from two to five, hitting each opponent and each creature they control, making it an effective pseudo-board wipe. The boost in damage checks to see if you cast it from exile, not just if you cast it from being foretold, making this a versatile burn spell.
9 Irenicus’s Vile Duplication
I’ll Take Two Please
There’s been a trend lately with Magic releasing all sorts of ways to create clones of legendary creatures without the pesky downside of the legend rule forcing you to pick between the two that you want to keep. Irenicus’s Vile Duplication is just another in a long line of clone effects that let you double up on your commander.
Unlike other cards that let you make nonlegendary clones, Irenicus’s Vile Duplication also gives your token flying for some wild reason, making your copy a strictly better version (assuming it didn’t already have flying). Pair it with other cards that multiply your tokens, like Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation or any other token multiplier, and you’ll have an army of commanders to take the game.
8 Tomb Of Horrors Adventurer
Make Sure You Read All Of The Card
Cards that come with multiple effects are exceptionally good in Magic, and Tomb of Horrors Adventurer comes loaded with two powerful effects. It first lets you take the initiative, which, at the very least, guarantees you a land drop. Then, anytime you cast a second spell on each turn, you get to copy it. Completing a dungeon lets you copy that spell twice.
While a little expensive at six mana, getting a chance to copy all your spells, or potentially even tripling your spells, puts you at a huge advantage. The wild thing about Tomb of Horrors Adventurer is that it lets you copy all spells, including permanents like enchantments and creatures.
7 Mirror Of Life Trapping
Plunge Your Games Into Chaos
There is a lot of text on Mirror of Life Trapping that might be understandably confusing when you first read it. Anytime a creature enters the battlefield, and it was cast from any player’s hand, the Mirror exiles it. If there are any other creatures exiled by the Mirror, those cards come back to the battlefield. It’s kinda like a delayed reaction when it comes to any cast creature.
The neat thing is if you have a lot of creatures with powerful enter the battlefield triggers, Mirror of Life Trapping gives you two instances of that trigger, you just have to wait until another creature is cast.
6 Displacer Kitten
Too Cute For All Those Teeth
There’s a lot you can do with Displacer Kitten, and most of the best ones include infinite combos that are surprisingly easy to execute. Displacer Kitten lets you exile a nonland permanent you control anytime you cast a noncreature spell, then immediately bring the exiled card back onto the battlefield.
All you must do is play a zero-cost artifact like Mox Amber with a Displacer Kitten and Teferi, Time Raveler out. Mox Amber will trigger the Kitten, blinking and resetting your Teferi. With a fresh Teferi out, you use his minus ability to return Mox Amber back to your hand and drawing a card. Replay the Mox Amber and keep the cycle going, adding as much mana as you want and drawing cards until you find your answer.
5 Astral Dragon
Astral Dragon, Astral Dragon, Astral Dragon
A creature and a clone effect all wrapped into one, Astral Dragon is a fascinating card that despite costing a ton of mana, is 100% worth running in the right deck. When Astral Dragon enters the battlefield, you get to make two token copies of any noncreature permanent in play. Those tokens are also 3/3 Dragons in addition to their other types.
You can use this to copy powerful enchantments like Thousand-Year Storm, or to go infinite with a card like Cursed Mirror. If you have some way to cheat it out early, like through Sneak Attack, you still end up with two permanent copies of whatever you target, making Astral Dragon a unique card that’s twice as strong as the most powerful card in play.
4 Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes
Two Heroes For The Price One
A unique planeswalker that can also be used as your commander, Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes gives you both the planeswalker and a little 1/1 Boo Hamster creature token with both trample and haste. While a 1/1 might not be impressive, you can almost immediately buff it up to a 4/4 with Minsc & Boo’s first ability.
While the guaranteed creature every turn is solid, It’s minus ability is the stronger of the two. You can sacrifice a creature, flinging it to any target and dealing damage equal to its power to that target. If you sacrifice Boo, or any other Hamster, you draw that many cards. Damage plus card advantage makes for a powerful planeswalker.
3 Black Market Connections
I Know A Guy Who…
A consistent way to generate value every turn is with Black Market Connections. Coming in at a cheap three mana, you can power this enchantment out as early as turn one with a very lucky hand so long as you also drew a Dark Ritual. Black Market Connections lets you pick any three of its modes, giving you the option to mix and match depending on what you need.
The downside is you always have to pick one, so once your life starts to get low there’s not much you can do that slowly drain yourself by making Treasure tokens, but hopefully by then you’ve drawn enough cards to find a backup plan.
2 Descent Into Avernus
Start The Clock
Descent into Avernus isn’t the best card from Battle for Baldur’s Gate but as far as singles you’ll want to pick up from the list, it’s basically essential. For just three mana you get a massively impactful enchantment that puts an immense amount of pressure on all players to close out the game, yourself included.
At the start of your turn, you put two counters on it, then Descent into Avernus gives all players Treasure tokens equal to the number of counters on it, and then it deals damage equal to the number of counters on it to all players. The longer Descent is out, the more damage it deals, but the further ahead it puts all players. If you want a guaranteed way to accelerate a game or to force some enchantment removal out of your opponent’s hand, Descent is the way to go.
1 Archivist Of Oghma
Make Good Use Of Your Opponent’s Fetches
Easily one of the best cards you can pick up from Battle for Baldur’s Gate is Archivist of Oghma, a little white creature that generates tons of value for you over the course of a game. Anytime an opponent searches their library you get to gain one life and draw a card.
The little draw engine that could has flash, letting you stick it into play in response to any tutor or fetchland your opponent might cast, all but guaranteeing you at least one card. Given the number of fetches and tutors flying around commander at all levels, Archivist of Oghma is an essential card for any white-based deck.
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