by Ed Fortune
Magic The Gathering is the most popular collectable card game in the world, with players across the globe collecting cards and challenging each other to Magic duels. It’s also got one of the most successful tournament circuits, so much so that one can make a living playing the game if you’re good enough. One of the best ways to play for fun is with Commander, the group-play version of the game. Let’s take a quick look at Rebellion Rising, the new pre-made commander deck for the game’s latest card release, Phyrexia: All Will Be One.
The theme of Phyrexia: All Will Be One is an epic struggle against the Phyrexians, a mind and soul-controlling zombie wave that wants to merge metal and flesh to create an all-consuming swarm of mindless monsters. As the name suggests, Rebellion Rising is about those fighting back against these beasties.
We get a 100-card pre-built commander deck, a sample booster pack, ten double-sided tokens, a life tracker, a deck box, and, of course, a foil commander card.
Rebellion Rising is a red-and-white deck which means it’s about doing damage, hitting hard and having lots of minions. It’s all about making ‘token’ creatures, which are non-card attacking creatures, to whittle away your opponent’s life total. The commander is Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard, who isn’t a brilliant card, but they have a very cool effect; all token creatures get a double strike, which means they hit first, then hit again. They also have some degree of deck manipulation. This is a strong set of powers that cost nothing in terms of mana or life, so it’s a strong card but not a terribly versatile one.
Cards like Hordeling Outburst and Prava of the Steel Legion let us generate lots of tokens, and there are a lot of these sorts of cards in the deck. A nice touch is that this is a mix of creatures, almost like it’s a rag-tag rebellion fighting for freedom. There are plenty of cards that buff the commander, and it’s a diverse mix of card types as well, which is very nice.
You will need lots of counters to play this deck, which is nice. It’s a fun, easy-to-play deck that fills the board with monsters, so you’ll always be having fun. More of this sort of thing, please.
