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Commander 2019 Descends Into "Madness" – "Magic: The Gathering"

During GenCon 2019 last weekend, Wizards of the Coast unveiled their newest Commander deck themes for Magic: The Gathering. What's more, they revealed that on each day from August 5th-8th, they are revealing a new decklist. The themes are Morph, Madness, Populate, and Flashback, themes that are very popular for many players. Today, Wizards of the Coast is spoiling cards for the last of these four preconstructed decks and will be spoiling the full decklist via The Command Zone channel on YouTube.

If you've been keeping up with Bleeding Cool's coverage of these daily releases (or if you've read the title of this article), you might guess the mechanic of the deck we are covering today – today, we are covering Madness. We have been busy going over the contents of the various Magic decks that have been spoiled so far (our segment covering the Morph deck's commanders was on Monday, while the Flashback deck's contents were discussed on Tuesday and the Populate deck was covered yesterday). Today, as with yesterday's reveal, we have the entire deck, known as Merciless Rage, spoiled for your edification. In fact, we have all of the decks in their fully-spoiled glory. That being said, this article will aim to showcase the three commander options for this Magic: the Gathering deck.

So with all of that out of the way, let's descend into Madness with these new cards!

Anje Falkenrath

What makes Anje Falkenrath an absolutely great fit for the face-card slot in Merciless Rage is how valuable of a draw engine she can possibly be, right away. Her tricks involving Madness cards will allow her engine to continue running as you see fit, if piloting the deck under her command. Her "red looting" effect (discarding cards as a cost to draw cards) is only made better with the inclusion of the sheer number of Madness cards in the preconstructed deck.

Greven, Predator Captain

Greven, Predator Captain is another classic character from Magic: the Gathering's Weatherlight Saga, alongside various other legendary creatures from Commander 2019. As his name suggests, Greven is captain of the flagship "Predator", a skyship that served as a foil to the Weatherlight (the protagonists' own skyship). Greven as a creature card does not disappoint with regard to storyline ties – his card has a built-in effect, not unlike Hatred. This ability makes his attacking strength quite terrifying.

Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Concluding our list of possible Commander options for the deck is Chainer, Nightmare Adept. Personally, as a huge fan of Chainer, Dementia Master (an older card featuring the same character), I'm inclined to call this new iteration either my favorite or second favorite new Commander in this Magic: The Gathering release. Like the original Chainer, the Nightmare Adept can reanimate creatures, only at a bit steeper price. On the upside, however, he gives creatures the ability to attack right away on your turn. This ability also affects creatures cast with Madness, or practically anywhere but your hand (tokens will, sadly, still have to wait). His ability also allows you to cast the card you discard, provided it's a creature card. Overall, he's a powerhouse of a commander.

Notable Magic: the Gathering Reprints

Because the decks are now fully revealed, there are a multitude of new cards and old cards alike to discuss. The Merciless Rage deck has plenty of reprints worth mentioning, notably cards such as Solemn Simulcrum, Ob Nixilis Reignited, and Warstorm Surge, cards which have been cornerstones of various decks for a while. These cards will most assuredly make Merciless Rage quite a sought-after deck for years to come.

Magic: the Gathering – Commander 2019 will be released in English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian, and is slated to hit shelves on August 23rd.

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