Jank Rank - Edge of Eternities

Haliya, Guided by Light

White's starting off strong with yet another Soul Sisters commander, which would be welcome if Darien and Minwu weren't already the king and queen of that strategy. They're married and happily in love, with seven children and a hefty 401K. Also Minwu is a woman, and they smoke weed. That's canon

Anyway, Haliya has Do-the-Thing Syndrome, the card game equivalent of an exasperated mother pleading with their child to take out the trash so they can get a moment of goddamn peace and quiet — only for them to get frustrated with the whole process and end up carrying the bag out themselves. Classic examples of Do-the-Thing Syndrome include Korvold, Helga, and Chulane. Each of those cards rewards you with value if you were to perform some task, only for them to proceed to perform some task. If your commander draws cards for existing, that's Do-the-Thing Syndrome.

Do-the-Thing Syndrome is a kiss of death for a card's jankability, because the decks often build themselves. What makes Haliya even worse is that she isn't even particularly adept at Doing-the-Thing. She only Soul Wardens for creatures and artifacts you control, and she only draws cards at the beginning of your end step.

Compare The Gaffer, who I'm much more interested in. Not only does he dodge Do-the-Thing Syndrome by failing to gain you life, he also draws you cards at the beginning of each end step, like some sort of goody-two-shoes Sygg.

Is there any play in the warp ability? Well, it appears you can't warp her out from the command zone, and she's Human, so Mutate shenanigans are out. Swing, and a miss.

The Seriema

I'm gonna be honest, I almost totally missed that these were commanders. Scryfall's is:commander search hasn't been updated for Legendary Vehicles and Spacecraft yet, and while I know that they're waiting until the rules actually change, come on, guys — we all know that it de facto went live the instant Wizards announced it.

The Seriema is a secret commander commander. You search for whatever legendary you actually wanna build around, and then play that deck with this Kyodai-level protection piece in your command zone. Makes ya wonder why you don't just put whatever mono-white Legendary you actually wanna play directly into the command zone, but hey! Sometimes you just think a flying 5/5 is worth adding companion tax to your real commander.

Mm'menon, the Right Hand

Agamemnon is the nineteenth in a long list of commanders that lets you cast cards off the top of your library. I would say that they're the first such creature that specializes in artifact spells specifically, but The Fourth Doctor exists — and he can also hit legendary spells and Sagas, with a more permissive color identity, and a better looking face.

Don't worry, The Mammon Machine makes up for it by plagiarizing the most annoying aspect of Urza, Lord High Artificer: his ridiculous artifact ramp. Luckily or unluckily, depending on your sin count, Wizards learned their lesson from last time, and so they spayed and neutered the mana produced by our boy Righty: it can only be spent on spells cast from anywhere other than your hand. In set, it's obviously meant to synergize with Warp, but out of set, it works best with Flashback spells and also Sensei's Divining Top.

It's worth noting that you actually have to cast a spell with that mana, so spell-like abilities such as Unearth are off the table. Of course, mana restrictions are nothing in the face of a Doubling Cube, but it's still a bit of a shame that you can't use the mana to activate abilities; I was looking forward to seriously recommending Candelabra of Tawnos. I guess that Vhal and Raised by Giants remain the go-to pair for mana laundering strategies.

If you want to make a jank deck out of this, your best bet is, unfortunately, stax. The odds of hitting value on the top of your deck is quite low, so you won't be consistently using your mana — but to be fair, the mana never really mattered to Urza, either; he just wanted to turn off Winter Orb. This is also a fine deck for an Uba Mask, and I'm just a little bit sad that Mmmm, Men doesn't sport red as a second color. That exile synergy would be delicious.

The pieces are there, but they're all a little bit too specific to be jank. You're likely locked in to what the card wants you to do. I'm looking forward to partnering them up with Unctus, Grand Metatect for next year's Pride Event, though. I swear, it's not a fetish thing.

Alpharael, Stonechosen

Let's assume you have an opponent who's a complete donkey and does nothing to interact with you. How many turns does it take to kill a man with Alpharael? First, you halve their forty life to twenty and then connect, subtracting three to go to seventeen; then, you halve seventeen to eight and subtract three to go to five; then, finally, you halve five to two and subtract three for a kill.

That just proves Alpharad looks more busted than he actually is. Thanks to the wonderful world of exponents, dividing your opponents' life totals in twain has diminishing returns, and so you ultimately end up merking someone in the same amount of turns that a slower Voltron commander would.

Now, if you were to buff his power up to seven, the quote-unquote "sweet spot" for Voltron commanders, you fare a bit better. Now, you take them from forty to twenty and subtract seven to get them to thirteen; and then you take them from thirteen to six and subtract seven for a kill. That's only a two shot, but it hangs on whether or not Alpha Male connects, which is doubtful. He has no built-in evasion, and his ward cost, which doesn't rely on mana, is irrelevant. Losing an extra card is a small price to pay when you survive and your opponent has to pay seven mana to get their commander back.

But, this isn't a power ranking. Space Station Alpha here is a great middle ground between Voltron and go-wide strategies, and I'm especially tempted to build a deck based around Archfiend of Despair. I think you'll get shut down the instant you try this combo, but hey, that's jank!

And even if you're not a big fan of Half-Life * 2, the right card in the wrong place makes all the difference in the world. Gary and Exanguinate look a lot more threatening from twenty than forty, and the less said about Torment of Hailfire, the better.

All in all, I quite like Alpharael. You're not wowing anyone with rules interactions, but you are taking a unique approach to the Voltron strategy, and some days, that's enough for this ol' Janketeer.

Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist

Oh shit, he's got a xylophone!

Xu-Ifit, Osteoporosis can revive anything. For free. With no restrictions, no finality counters, nothing. That's incredible, especially at three mana. Unfortunately, they're not the most proficient at it, and their targets come back a little... spookier. No abilities means no bullshit Archon of Cruelty loops, which immediately culls ninety percent of animator players. The ten percent of you that are left, listen up.

First thing's first: you return the actual card to the battlefield. That means it's not a token copy, so anything that cares specifically about nontoken creatures is above board. Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, High-Society Hunter, they all work.

You also keep the mana value, power, and toughness of the original card. Some creatures rock a high stat line for their cost, which is balanced by having a negative ability: see Rotting Regisaur, Phyrexian Soulgorger, and Phyrexian Dreadnought for some examples.

Frankly, it seems like the deck should just be built around getting the highest mana value or power creatures into the yard possible, only to sacrifice them to effects that care specifically about those values. Szeras loves to see a big butt come back for even more juicy mana; Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar will draw you tons of cards; and Shadow, Mysterious Assassin can dome your enemies for nine every turn. Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist is best as an infinite source of ammunition for strategies that would otherwise run out of juice if they failed to draw enough creatures.

If that's not jank enough, let's lightning-round a couple of other strategies:

• There's the self-bounce and blink route; black doesn't get much in this space, but Mirror of Life Trapping is colorless, and so is Portcullis.
• You could sacrifice your vanilla creature under the effect of a Feign Death to reinstate their abilities, which lets you scam in reverse.
• Xu Bu also works hand-in-metacarpal with cards that care about stuff leaving your graveyard, so say hi to Tormod for me.
• We have here another excellent Zero Day roleplayer, if not commander. Tap to bring back a 0/0 for an instant nontoken death trigger, and it even works with characteristic-defining ability creatures such as Beast of Burden.

Unfortunately, Clone does not work the way I want it to, but that's a minor point (and I have a better deck for that anyway). I also really wish it could have access to blue, because untappers would go nuts. Regardless, I'm happy with Xu, and I'm excited to investigate niche applications with them.

Tannuk, Steadfast Second

Good gravy, Tannuk can capture my flag any day.

Tanuki Suit grants every artifact card and every red creature card in your hand warp, and he tacks on haste for good measure. That makes him the illegitimate love child of Satoru Umezawa and Daretti, so I'm expecting to see a ton of the same staples: fat creatures and ridiculous triggers. God, I just realized this lets players double-cast The One Ring. I'd also throw in a nice helping of exile-matters, since you can now basically cast anything you want from the zone.

It's a good thing this is limited to specifically to red creatures, because I am not about to deal with both an Ulamog, the Defiler cast and attack trigger for three mana. The only way for that shit to happen is with Painter's Servant (or Encroaching Mycosynth), and if you can pull that off, you goddamn deserve it.

Let's get some of the more well-known tricks out of the way. Sundial of the Infinite lets you keep your warped creatures; cards that care about mana value, such as Excalibur, still see the full mana value; and if you bounce or sacrifice the creature you warped, it doesn't get exiled.

Now for the fun stuff. Cost reducers still work with warp, so you could conceivably discount the cost of your spells down to free thanks to exactly Defiler of Instinct handling the single red pip.

Warp only works from the hand, but you can combine that with other fun alternate casting costs for extra confusion. Warp Fury and then evoke it from exile, or warp Ragavan and then dash it from exile. Don't even get me started on Mutate, mostly because I'm unsure if that even works. I sure hope it does.

Warp's exile trigger can also stifle any end-step sacrifices, like on Ball Lightning. The Ball Lightning deck has always bounced around in my head, but I haven't found a great commander for it yet. Maybe my prayers have finally been answered?

Ah, let's be realistic, though. Painter's Servant aside, I don't think there's much of an opportunity here for creative plays; you're mostly going to be slinging good cards. There's cute interactions, like wiping Humble Defector's downside, or getting a cheesy Heartless Hidetsugu activation, but nothing that immediately jumps out to me as "wow, this breaks the game."

Red's no stranger to cheating out creatures and artifacts, so it's more a matter of how than what. I'm sure I'll find some ridiculous interaction that breaks the game wide open five minutes after publishing this article, but for now, let's put this in the "Most Potential" tier.

Alpharael, Dreaming Acolyte

Who cares.

Okay, I suppose I should at least attempt to do my job: you could blink Dimir Alpharael for value. I mean, if I was going to built a blink-my-commander-for-value deck in the color pair, I'd choose Atris, but... yeah, I got nothing.

Tannuk, Memorial Ensign

Tatyova, but baller.

Unlike that Simic value barf engine, Tannuk, Memorial Ensign only draws you a card once per turn, but he makes up for it by pinging all your opponents with every new parcel. Call this commander Lays, though, because I betcha can't have just one; whether you have more pingers, ways to boost your noncombat damage, or simply a shitload of lands, your opponents are going to be feeling the heat all game.

Now, is Ensign Tannuk jank? Hell no, he's got Do-the-Thing Syndrome in spades. His ability draws you more fetch lands to ping people with. Still, this is a do-it-all commander I can get behind, because I'm so fucking sick of Landfall being a go-wide token hellscape dominated by endless copies of Scute Swarm. More on that later.

Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam

Smash.

My first impression of DataDyne was positive, since it basically ignores commander tax. Whether you're investing into X or paying off the commander tax fine, you're still getting a number of counters equal to the amount of mana you spent. Go wild with your attacks!

Then I read the card further, and, sadly, its actual ability is (say it with me, kids) classic Do-the-Thing Syndrome. You play creatures with lots of counters on them so you can remove the counters to draw cards and create 2/2s, which probably enter with counters on them because you included a copy of Master Chef.

I would be so much more on board if it could remove any counter instead of just +1/+1s, but as-is, they're too much of a generic value engine to be jank.

Haliya, Ascendant Cadet

I have an idea: what if we took Kutzil, replaced the best sentence on the card with something totally uninspired, and compensated for it by making it a shitload more expensive? Snore.

Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar

I'm going to write this review under the assumption that Syr Vondam will be built primarily as a blink deck, since the sacrifice variant reads like a worse version of Bartolomé del Presidio.

So, the intended play pattern looks like this: you've got your standard blink deck, but every creature you exile stores up extra power in Syr Vondam. You crash into your opponents again and again, and in a pinch you cash that power in to delete something from the board. Your opponents are reticent to block, because every death comes with divine retribution, and you win by doming your opponents to death in a nice comfy, downy blanket of midrange goodness.

Pretty neat, but you can do better by simply playing two anthems (or maybe even one anthem, if you draw the right card). Imagine how absolutely infurating this deck becomes the instant your blink spells come with an additional homicide. Worse still, thanks to the way the commander works, your opponents can never reliably kill Syr Vondam. The deck will end up, like, ninety percent Ephemerate, so if they point any removal your way, you can just blink Vondam in response, which fizzles their spell and blows up their most prized permanent. It's Ketramose for dicks, and that's saying something.

Do I think that the Syr Vondam anthem strategy is jank? On the face of it, yes, since you're subverting the expected play pattern of the card for a neat outcome. Would I play that jank strategy? Hell no — it's way too controlly to be fun in any meaningful sense of the word.

Syr Vondam, the Lucent

This card may be simple, but being simple doesn't mean you can't style.

Syr Vondam, the Lucent reads like a neat way to get sabetours through, but my dream is to animate and buff permanents that definitely, one-hundred percent were not meant to have deathtouch. Yes, I would Opalescence a Pestilence. I'm not sorry.

Mm'menon, Uthros Exile

Well, here's a plant for Encroaching Mycosynth if I've ever seen it.

Unfortunately, I'm reading an Izzet card, so there's no Scurry Oak shenanigans available for Mm'menon, Uthros Exile. The closest you can get with a single card (in the colors) appears to be Axgard Artisan, and that creature's been bitten by the once-each-turn spider.

It's probably a fine commander to play; there's just not a lot going on, jankwise.

Ragost, Deft Gastronaut

What about Zoidberg?

I'm in love, and for once in my goddamn life, it's not a furry thing. Ragost, Deft Gastronaut is exactly the type of card I adore. He's got so many options open to him: life gain, artifact sacrifice, Food typal, burn, untap synergies, the works!

I'm so spoiled for options here! Do I give him lifelink to guarantee he untaps? Should I leverage token creators like Feldon of the Third Path? Would I commit an inordinate amount of resources into tutoring up Academy Manufactor? Can I eat a car?!

I'm seriously tempted to toss together a bunch of weird, specific ingredients that, on the surface, absolutely should not share space in the same pot — yet, when you take a bite, they all perfectly blend together into a rich, creamy, and intense explosion of flavor.

Okay, Michael, focus. Come up with the jankiest thing you can. Crucible of Worlds artifact Landfall from the grave? Liquimetal Torque and Act of Treason theft-sacrifice? KCI combo? It's just an absolute playground! What a gem! If Wizards can do this, I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

Sami, Ship's Engineer

Aaaaaand back in the who cares zone.

Sami, Wildcat Captain

Oh, this is dangerous.

Sami gives all your spells affinity for artifacts, including artifacts, so if you have some way to bounce or recur them, you're playing tons of free spells. Add in the Defilers and some way to gain life, and things get even more crazy.

But that's a boring way to cheat out free spells. Don't get me wrong, free spells is clearly the play, but I need it to embarrass my opponents. That's why I'm going for a Kentaro, the Smiling Cat secret commander. All you have to do is find Kentaro, find Maskwood Nexus, and all your creatures can be cast by paying only a colorless mana bill — a colorless mana bill that is reduced to nothing by Sami.

Infinite Guideline Station

For those of you with the five-color commander that represents the set's major gameplay theme space on your Bingo card, feel free to mark it off.

So we've got more Do-the-Thing Syndrome here. It's light, but technically, Infinite Guideline Station counts itself for both abilities, so you'll get at least one token on entry and at least one card on attack. You'll want to wait until you have at least five other multicolored permanents, though, because then you can immediately bring Deep Space Nine here online.

I don't hate this card. You have to put in more effort than none at all to reap your rewards. It's just very milquetoast in terms of creativity. I've heard the argument that having a commander that does nothing but draw cards gives you the opportunity to craft whatever strategy you want, and that can be true, but I believe that, in the general case, true inspiration is borne from a spark. Most people don't make something unique out of whole cloth; they get an idea from somewhere else, and iterate upon it until it's truly theirs. More on that later.

Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought

Trying to avoid Star Wars references in a space opera set is like trying to avoid contracting chlamydia when you hug a koala. They're both inexorably tied to one another, and there's nothing you can do to change that inalienable fact. Chlamydia for everyone!

With that inevitability, why, then, did they decide to make a commander card that references one of the worst films in the entire saga? Did I really need the Xyston-class Star Destroyer as a commander, complete with a final stage where, "oh, they fly now? They fly now. They fly now!"

Jokes aside, one hundred damage murders anything worth talking about. It also specifically doesn't murder Stuffy Doll, who you're targeting for days — or actually just once, because Stuffy Doll becomes obsolete the instant its target is dead. In the late game, though, twenty combat damage almost murders any player. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader how to get that last point.

I'm declaring this jank just on the face of it being a colorless commander that is so ostentatiously Timmy it hurts. By the way, did you know Station is an activated ability, and therefore Marvin can legally copy it? I don't know why you'd do that; I just think it's neat.

Hearthhull, the Worldseed

Lord Windgrace, but baller.

Instead of simply setting up ramp and then paying it off, Hearthhull wants you to play aggressively. I like that you're not actually going up in lands with each activation, since the extra drop is canceled out by the land you sacrificed. That gives it the unique position of being the one Landfall deck that doesn't necessarily ramp, and that prospect plus the novelty of the Spacecraft type is so thrilling to me that I can look past its Do-the-Thing Syndrome.

Remember, this is an artifact, so despite Jund not being all that great at untapping arbitrary permanents, you've still got access to Voltaic Key, Manifold Key, Voltaic Servant, Sonic Screwdriver, and more. And why stop there? Go all-in on an artifact creature list to make the most of your untappers, who would now station for double or even triple the counters.

Finally, once you fully power it up, Hearthhull becomes one of the only commanders where Zuran Orb is an outright win condition, and I love that.

I can't in good conscience call Hearthhull jank, because I can't see much give beyond its intended play patterns. However, I can call it interesting, and that's not a bad diagnosis at all.

Szarel, Genesis Shepherd

I'm pissed at Szarel.

For starters: textbook Do-the-Thing Syndrome. To be fair, this is a rare example where you're not rewarded with extra cards for Doing-the-Thing — but the enabler piece of the puzzle actually solves your card advantage for you, because it lets you reuse the same fetch lands again and again. That basically always ensures you both make your land drop and sacrifice a nontoken permanent during your turn; it's Do-the-Thing, just inverted.

But that's not what has me angry. I'm not pissed at Szarel, Unintenionally Biblical-Sounding Epithet because it's not jank; that, I could live with. I'm pissed at Szarel because it's so not jank that it actually eclipsed a previously-existing jank option.

I own a Zask deck that has the exact same play pattern as is intended for Szarel: use its Crucible of Worlds ability to play tons of fetch lands out of the graveyard. I loaded my deck up with many ways to play additional lands so I could ramp, big spells to spend all that mana on, Landfall triggers that power up my commander, and (crucially), very few Insects. Because Zask can give itself deathtouch, I used enchantments like Roaring Earth to make him stronger over time; then, when I was nice and ready, I'd give him trample and activate his ability for the deathtouch to go in for a cheesy commander damage kill.

I figured this was jank for a few reasons: one, I'm outright ignoring the Insect synergies on the card, and two, I can now play Landfall without relying wholly on tokens, such as those generated by Rampaging Baloths. It didn't have Do-the-Thing Syndrome, because even though my commander enabled a Landfall strategy, it didn't outright pay it off.

Enter this fucker, and now I have absolutely no reason not to play Szarel. That infuriates me, because my previously off-beat strategy is now the explicit play pattern of a precon, down to the power buffing! Of course you're going to run stuff like Skyclave Pick-Axe in Szarel, because now that buff radiates out to your other creatures as part of his sacrifice trigger!

I know that this is trivial bullshit that means nearly nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I pride myself on my creativity. This feels like getting plagiarized; the rug's pulled out from underneath me, and what I once enjoyed as something unique and all my own no longer is. The only revenge I can get now is to build Szarel as Insect-typal, the way you'd play a typical Zask list. Fuck this card.

Inspirit, Flagship Vessel

I, too, consider Spirit Airlines to be a paragon of air travel.

Unfortunately, I'm not too thrilled about a commander version of Luminarch Aspirant, even if at eight charge counters it renders my artifacts hexproof and indestructible. I guess you could Disk-lock people if you found a way to protect Inspirit, but I think most people are building this as charge counters dot dek and nothing else.

Kilo, Apogee Mind

Kilo was designed with Vehicles and especially Stations in mind, since those are easy ways to tap the little bot without having to risk his fragile, aluminum body in combat. For that, you get to proliferate, and then untap it to proliferate again, until your Empowered Autogenerator makes a million billion mana.

In terms of jank, I'm reading Kilo as a less open-ended Cayth, Famed Mechanist, who themselves was just a less open-ended Xavier Sal, Infested Captain. I guess the family tree is Fungus Pirate, to Dwarf Artificer, to Robot Artificer. The passage of time is crazy.