Well, Shadows over Innistrad has been out for a while. We all know what that means! Leave behind all of the junk people are talking about, and start playing with the cards! During Magic preview seasons, there’s a lot of footsie. How will this one card affect a given archetype for Standard or Modern? How will a new legendary creature play out in Commander? But after the set’s release happens, we stop playing footsie, and we start playing Magic.

How do the cards actually play out?

That’s the key. As we are regularly reminded of again and again, cards play out differently. We get that.

What are the first wave of cards that are making the cut into my decks and projects? And what’s on my queue for future pulls and swaps? Let’s take a look!

Commander Cube Changes

As many of you might already know, I have a Commander Cube that is drafted with six packs and eight players and features just a hair over a thousand cards. The set has a bunch of draftable archetypes built into it, along with the leaders. You can check out the visual spoiler and see it—or draft it over at CubeTutor.com.

As this is a real-life project of mine, what’s making the cut from Shadows thus far?

In: The Gitrog Monster; Out: Pharika, God of Affliction

I used to run all ten dual-colored Gods from Theros block because they were unanimously strong at giving most colors unusual takes to draft around. Most are still there today, and they provide nice, draftable commanders that give your colors something interesting. But I don’t want to be a slave to cycles, and when something better comes along, I need to be able to slide to it. The first God to come out was Phenax, God of Deception. I didn’t have much of a milling theme, and Dragonlord Silumgar was a better choice. The next one to leave is Pharika, God of Affliction. Pharika is also pretty weak for its colors, and if you want to give yourself tokens, you have to exile your own stuff from the ’yard, which Golgari doesn’t feel comfortable with. I want to start with The Gitrog Monster and then see where we are. Its ability to grab your cards when your lands hit the hay is great, it works well with the self-sacrifice effects already layered into Golgari and Jund themes, and it’s a nice beater. It’s just better.

In: Avacyn's Judgment; Out: Arc Lightning

I like having flexible burn in the Cube, and the Avacyn's Judgment certainly qualifies. We don’t have any major intentional madness support, although we certainly do have various discard effects here and there. You could also use something like Liliana Vess to target yourself to discard the Judgment to madness it out. But the benefit of having an early-game (sorcery-speed) Shock variant and a later-game X spell is one that really entices me, and I want to try it out and see where we end up. (It’s basically a 2-mana Arc Lightning for 1 fewer damage, so it slides into this slot easily enough.)

In: Dissension in the Ranks; Out: Disaster Radius

The Radius is a great board cleaner in ramp-style decks, and I’ve seen the occasional Dragon used to clean house as well, but the extra, random, never-sure-about-it Wrath of God variant just isn’t that needed, reliable, or played. So let’s try the Dissension in the Ranks combat trick instead. I suspect that’ll prove a much better card.

In: Thing in the Ice; Out: Wall of Tears

This is my favorite swap of the new cards for so many reasons. I was wanting to pull Wall of Tears for ages. It’s not very good—many folks attack into it so you’ll block and bounce their Eternal Witness, Solemn Simulacrum, Beetleback Chief, and more. Then, that player can replay it for more triggers. That puts you in an awkward situation where the card that is supposed to protect you opens you up to attacks. Thing in the Ice plays better as an early Wall. Any deck that wants an early defender gets one. And then you get a beater later after a few instants and/or sorceries were cast. And the best part is that Thing in the Ice is a great support for my Izzet sorcery-and-instant-matters subtheme as well. So it has added value there.

In: Ulvenwald Hydra; Out: Pelakka Wurm

Is there a place for Ulvenwald Hydra? How about pulling Pelakka Wurm? The Wurm is great, as it gives you life, a card, and a 7/7 beater. It’s a great body for Bant Blink, Golgari, Sultai or Abzan reanimation, and all of the various green ramp combos (Selesnya, Gruul, and Simic all have good options in Commanders for that theme). But the Hydra is cheaper on the mana, still has a useful enters-the-battlefield trigger and a smattering of card advantage, and could potentially be bigger. But it lacks the punch of trample. Both are fine, but I think this one is obvious.

I don’t have any extra copies of some of the following cards, but when I do, I want to make these changes:

In: Relentless Dead; Out: Withered Wretch

And then I have some cards on my shortlist to hit up later.

• Corrupted Grafstone
• Trail of Evidence
• Magnifying Glass
• Drownyard Temple
• Skeleton Key
• Confirm Suspicions

Here are others I like as possible later admissions:

• Haunted Cloak
• Tamiyo's Journal
• Seasons Past
• Cryptolith Rite
• Goldnight Castigator
• To the Slaughter
• Confirm Suspicions
• Broken Concentration
• Archangel Avacyn

Here are cards on the chopping block (from my Cube):

• Mogg Maniac
• Manic Vandal
• Wrecking Ogre
• Dead // Gone
• Lightning Helix

That’s where my Commander Cube is today. If you draft it, let me know what you think!

Now, how about my decks and stuff?

Borborygmos Enraged and His Magical Wildfire

Drownyard Temple comes in for a basic land. This deck is a ramp-based Gruul Commander deck that uses the best ramping we have to reach a point at which we can drop cards like Wildfire and such to hit others’ lands while enabling us to have enough to survive. It’s my Spikiest creation, and even here, I’m still not running Armageddon and stuff. I can’t. It’s not in my blood. But I can run Wildfires and then give you an out by just sacrificing four lands, using ramp, mana rocks, mana dudes, and such. Anyway, Drownyard Temple is an obvious addition to the deck. Welcome!

Ob’s Commander Shadow

This deck is a mono-black deck built around self-recursive creatures like Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul, and Bloodghast as well as sacrifice effects and graveyard fun times. I was thinking about both Sanitarium Skeleton and Relentless Dead. Most of the key creatures in the deck aren’t Zombies, so the deck’s Zombie count is lower than you’d think. Thus, the Dead isn’t an obvious swap. And the Skeleton is just a 1/1, and it costs 4 mana to recur and drop it again, which is a lot more expensive than something like Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor, or others. I’m going to put both on my watch list for potential later inclusion.

Cromat’s Five-Color Friends and Enchantment-Ganza

I have a Five Color deck with a ton of Planeswalkers, very few creatures, and a few fun cycles like the Hondens from Champions of Kamigawa (Honden of Seeing Winds, for example) and the Sanctuaries from Apocalypse (Ceta Sanctuary, for example). There are a few cards I like for the creature-light build. Sorin, Grim Nemesis strikes me as the best of the lot for this specific deck, and as soon as I pick up a copy for it, he’ll head right on in. Nahiri, the Harbinger is also on my short list for inclusion. I also like Vessel of Nascency as a support card for this structure, but I don’t have any cards I’m looking at pulling for you.

The various decks not mentioned here don’t have any obvious changes. My recent build of Fumiko the Lowblood doesn’t really want anything from the mono-red cards included. Another is a deck with a ton of 1- and 2-drop evasive creatures that casts Edric, Spymaster of Trest and then draws a ton of cards from the swings. But there are no Scryb Sprites or Hypnotic Sirens flitting about. And I don’t see any major cheap tempo players either.

And finally . . . 

Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy

Now for the good stuff!

Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy is my life’s work. It’s my piece de resistance. Currently sitting at a bit over thirty-two-hundred cards, this deck is a Highlander Five Color machine. It’s awesome. I always add all of the good, great, amazing, and fun stuff from the latest sets to it as soon as a new set is released. Want to see it? Of course you do! But for now, let’s just look at the cards from Shadows over Innistrad that I am adding to good ol‘ reliable H&J.

Abe?s Deck of Happiness and Joy ? Highlander Five Color | Abe Sargent

• Mana (15)
• 1 Corrupted Grafstone
• 1 Magnifying Glass
• 1 Drownyard Temple
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Forsaken Sanctuary
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Foul Orchard
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Highland Lake
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Stone Quarry
• 1 Warped Landscape
• 1 Westvale Abbey
• 1 Woodland Stream

Buy This Deck

Baby needs to play that stuff. There are a ton of mana needs in the deck, and these are all obvious ways of making and helping with casting stuff. They all head in.

What else goes in?

Abe?s Deck of Happiness and Joy ? Highlander Five Color | Abe Sargent

• Tools (31)
• 1 Descend Upon the Sinful
• 1 Eerie Interlude
• 1 Open the Armory
• 1 Broken Concentration
• 1 Confirm Suspicions
• 1 Epiphany at the Drownyard
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1 Pore over the Pages
• 1 Behind the Scenes
• 1 Ever After
• 1 From Under the Floorboards
• 1 To the Slaughter
• 1 Burn from Within
• 1 Avacyn's Judgment
• 1 Dissension in the Ranks
• 1 Geistblast
• 1 Cryptolith Rite
• 1 Fork in the Road
• 1 Root Out
• 1 Rabid Bite
• 1 Seasons Past
• 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Arlinn Kord
• 1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
• 1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
• 1 Brain in a Jar
• 1 Haunted Cloak
• 1 Skeleton Key
• 1 Slayer's Plate
• 1 Tamiyo's Journal

Buy This Deck

Those are my utilities, tools, and support cards. From the mass removal of Descend upon the Sinful to the flexible card-draw stylings of Epiphany at the Drownyard, there are a lot of expected cards in here. We need to do stuff and that requires drawing cards and breaking things. All of the Planeswalkers are here, and you have land-fetching, counters, and more. The value of these cards is, I think, is pretty easy to see. Do you really need me to expound on the value of Cryptolith Rite in a thirty-two-hundred-plus-card Five Color deck?

Abe?s Deck of Happiness and Joy ? Highlander Five Color | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Angel of Deliverance
• 1 Archangel Avacyn
• 1 Odric, Lunarch Marshal
• 1 Thing in the Ice
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Forgotten Creation
• 1 Sin Prodder
• 1 Deathcap Cultivator
• 1 Sage of Ancient Lore
• 1 Altered Ego
• 1 The GItrog Monster
• 1 Sigarda, Heron's Grace
• 1 Wild-Field Scarecrow

Buy This Deck

These are the creatures that are heading in. I’m really looking forward to Forgotten Creation. It could add a powerful mass-Looter effect when needed, and it can pull you out of bad situations. This deck embraces most Looting effects, and it runs a ton of cards that change up card quality, such as Whirlpool Warrior. This is a great effect since you’ll often look at your hand and think, “I could do better than this!” Now you can try! And the best part of the card is that you can discard and draw a new hand during your upkeep, so you can draw your normal card for the turn and then play all of the awesome stuff you just drew.

And there you have it: the cards we’re using, abusing, and sending into all of my existing decks and projects. What about you? What swaps have you made?