Symmetrical Effects in Commander
Can we take cards that deliberately hurt all players at the table, including you, and turn them into game-winning advantages?
A little while ago on Twitter, a question popped up. “If Wizards came to you and asked you to make a Secret Lair what four cards would you include?” It sparked a lot of conversation and as far as Magic Twitter is concerned it was one of the more tame topics to fill the daily zeitgeist. And it got me thinking, what four cards would I choose? There are a lot of cards in this game that I love, but my favorite genre of card is “rule setting” cards; symmetrical effects that set new parameters or rules on the game. Pictured below is what I would craft as my own personal Secret Lair: “It’s Symmetrical, So It’s Fair”
Symmetrical effects like these often get overlooked because they impose a restriction or punishment on you along with your opponents, but because of their symmetrical nature, it usually means more efficient and powerful effects. Especially in Commander, effects like these shine because a single card will impact multiple players at once, stretching the value of that card far beyond what most can do. Though, you may be asking yourself, “Why would I want to play a card that imposes a restriction on myself when I can just play strong cards that only provide me upside?” That is an incredibly fair question, this style of card certainly isn’t the clearest on the surface as to how they can be used to your own advantage. However, if we know that our deck is going to be leveraging these cards we can plan around them and “break the symmetry” on the cards and turn their downsides into upsides, all while heavily hindering our opponents.
“Breaking Symmetry”
What does it look like to break the symmetry on a card? How do we turn the perceived negatives of these cards into an upside for us? I want to look at the cards in my personal secret lair to show ways that I have leveraged these cards to great effect, and hopefully inspire you to take a second look at this kind of effect for your own decks. In order to effectively utilize this type of card you really need to plan around them. Just slamming a Rule of Law or Armageddon into your Gluntch, the Bestower group hug deck is not going to instantly make it better, but if you plan your deck around them and think about how to play around that effect powerful things can happen.
Let's start by taking a look at Repercussion. A three-mana red enchantment that reads, “Whenever a creature is dealt damage, Repercussion deals that much damage to that creature’s controller.”
Upsides:
This card has the capability of dishing out A TON of damage. Red is known for its damage-based board wipes, so you couple the format's most famous damage board wipe, Blasphemous Act, with this card, and anybody with 3 or more creatures on the battlefield when it resolves is pretty much guaranteed to be dead.
This card makes blocking incredibly awkward. When it's on the field blocking becomes a game of removing creatures as opposed to stopping damage.
People may not want to cast creatures into this card knowing that it poses a huge damage risk to them, buying you time to advance your own gameplan.
Downsides:
If you yourself have too many creatures on the field when you cast a Blasphemous Act or other damage-based board wipes you also could just die.
How then do we leverage the insane damage-dealing capability of this card without just outright killing ourselves? My favorite way to do it is by avoiding creatures altogether. I have a Kaervek the Merciless deck that plays zero creatures outside of the commander. That approach allows me to slam this card down worry-free because I know that it will not impact me, and if it does it will be very minimal. Then with all the extra space in the deck freed up by not playing creatures, I am able to pack it full of effects that dish out major damage bringing a swift end to my opponents. Another way to leverage this card is by finding ways to redirect or prevent any damage that would be dealt to you. Cards like Blessed Sanctuary, Selfless Squire, or Samite Ministration are great ways to keep that damage off of yourself. You can also turn that damage coming at you into an infinite combo with Pariah (or Pariah’s Shield) and Brash Taunter. Equip the Pariah to Brash Taunter, deal the Taunter any kind of damage, Repercussion would also make you take the damage, but Pariah redirects the damage to Brash Taunter, then rinse and repeat until your opponents have been burnt to a crisp. After you have done that you can rub your victory in by channeling your inner goblin and telling your opponents, “You hit like a kobold”.
Next, let's take a look at Armageddon. A controversial card in Commander to say the least. A simple 4 mana sorcery that reads, “Destroy all lands.”
Upsides:
This card sets everyone back to the same level, so if anyone ramped a ton and got way ahead on mana resources this is a clean way to make all players equal again.
If you are ahead on board/have a strong board state this is a really powerful way to ensure you hold that lead and drive yourself toward a victory.
Downsides:
This card can make people very very salty if used recklessly.
If other players have a lot of non-land mana producers and you do not this can be a dead card in hand or can set you back further than it sets others.
Armageddon is an all-time classic card that has developed a poor stigma in Commander. While some of that stigma is well deserved because when used recklessly the card can lead to some very drawn-out and frustrating games. When used appropriately however it can be a powerful and game-winning card; it just takes planning to break the synergy on the card in order to turn it into such. There are a few ways to do this. One way is by ensuring that your lands do not go away at the resolution of the spell. By making all your lands indestructible you will be left with all your lands and your opponents will not. Boros Charm, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and Heroic Intervention are all ways of doing this. Teferi’s Protection does a pretty good impression of this as well. The other way to leverage land destruction is by letting your lands get destroyed and then bringing them back. Cosmic Intervention, Faith’s Reward, and Splendid Reclamation are the best of the best of these effects. The added benefit to this approach is it allows you to trigger powerful landfall effects on the lands returning to further drive your advantage and all but guarantee a victory. My Quintorius, Field Historian deck does exactly that and I will tell you what, when you resolve a Faith’s Reward after Armageddon to trigger your Moraug or your Felidar Retreat 10+ times, its hard to ever look at Armageddon the same way again. It can be a casual commander card when used properly and can lead to some very exciting and fun plays.
Next, I want to look at one of my all-time favorite Magic cards. One of the most simple and elegant rule-setting cards in the game. Rule of Law. A three-mana enchantment that says, “Each player can’t cast more than one spell each turn.”
Upsides:
This card does an amazing job of keeping “unfair” decks in check. If a spell slinger or combo player wants to win the game they almost assuredly have to get rid of this card before they can do so
In white you often need more time to get your engine set up as the ramp and draw options are more limited than the other colors so this can buy you valuable time to get there.
Downsides:
White tends to have lower mana value spells overall so this card can easily keep you from double spelling at times when you would need to do so in order to get ahead
It takes time for this card to help build the advantage you need to win the game which can provide players time to answer it or often just answer you.
Knowing these downsides we need to build around this card in a way that lets us get ahead without needing to cast multiple spells a turn in order to do so. This card (along with other cards of the same effect like Eidolon of Rhetoric and Archon of Emeria) are all stars in my favorite and longest-lasting deck helmed by Daxos the Returned. The way to leverage this card is by utilizing activated abilities. In the case of Daxos for three mana we make an enchantment spirit token with power and toughness equal to the number of experience counters. Rule of Law works so well here because it slows the other players down allowing you time to build up your experience counters to the point where you are making a 10/10 every time you activate Daxos. At that point, the card might as well say “Players can’t cast spells” because you are just going to be activating Daxos over and over until you overwhelm the board and win the game. This list of cards that have powerful advantage-building activated abilities is incredibly long but a few that I enjoy are Luminarch Ascension, Thrasios, Triton Hero, and Queen Kayla bin-Kroog. Another way to break the symmetry on Rule of Law is by casting cards on each player's turn. Rule of Law limits you to only one spell a turn but there are three other players at the table so if you can cast one spell on each turn that’s four spells a turn cycle. Insert your favorite list of instants or flash spells here because this can take on any flavor you want. I personally like this strategy in an Ephara, God of the Polis deck that leverages lots of flash creatures because it allows you to slow your opponents down, cast creatures on everyone else’s turn, while also drawing you a ton of cards along the way. I could gush for hours about cool ways to utilize this card, but for the sake of brevity I will just say that the advantage that this card generates can be hard to see at times, especially when in-game, but I promise that when used properly it is a back-breaking card and I encourage you to give it a try.
Taking a step back in time, we have our final card in the Secret Lair drop, Oppression. A card that, when utilized to its fullest, can live up to its name. It is a three-mana black enchantment that reads, “Whenever a player casts a spell, that player discards a card”.
Upsides:
This card can keep players from accruing a ton of extra card advantage, by forcing them to lose a card whenever they want to cast a card.
It can easily fuel graveyard strategies that want to get cards in the graveyard.
Downsides:
If you are behind and low on cards and draw this it can often be wrong to cast it as it will likely hurt you more than others.
Almost all commander decks have some way to get value out of the graveyard so this continuous discard effect can sometimes advantage other players over you.
Oppression is a tricky one. Out of all of these four, it’s the one that I think is most risky to play. For one it draws a lot of ire. No one likes their cards being stripped away. We are all here to play a game and when a card prevents that from happening people tend to get a little frustrated. It also can heavily impact you. If you don’t have ways to accrue card advantage or leverage the cards going to the graveyard this will quickly leave you in top deck mode. So play this one carefully, and maybe even run it past your playgroup first. If they are okay with it or you are running around in higher-powered pods give it a shot. The best way I have found to leverage it is playing it alongside more grindy graveyard strategies, like Muldrotha, the Gravetide or Arumi of the Dead Tide. These kinds of decks can utilize their graveyard as almost a second hand and the advantage gained by having their opponents throw away their cards makes it well worth it for them to also do so. It can also be well used by more targeted reanimator-style decks, providing a disruptive force that also acts as a discard outlet for you. The other way to utilize it is by not casting spells. Similar to Rule of Law, playing it in a deck with lots of activated abilities usually means you end up spending your mana activating those abilities rather than casting spells, keeping your game plan advancing and your hand full.
Parting Thoughts
With all this said, it should be noted again that these cards are not everyone’s tea. I am not saying that every deck would be made better by adding them, but what I am saying is that if you plan around symmetrical effects like these you can create really interesting and innovative decks and gameplay experiences that you can’t find anywhere else.
Next time you are building a deck, take a look at some symmetrical effects that you may have brushed over in the past and ask yourself how you can turn the apparent disadvantage into a game-altering advantage and ultimately make the symmetrical effect, not-so-fair after all. I promise that finding ways to bend and break these cards to work FOR you and not AGAINST you is an incredibly satisfying feeling and will create some incredibly memorable gameplay!
Let us know some of your favorite “symmetrical” effects in commander! Comment below your thoughts or find us on Twitter @outofthebox_mtg!