Hidden Gems, Redux

With over 14,000 cards to choose from in Commander, it’s no secret that there are a few that are going to still be flying under the radar after all this time. I did back-to-back weeks of this nearly eighty episodes ago, and there are still cards that I’m finding that weren’t on those lists or that I haven’t featured since. Here are 50 more for your enjoyment. As always, if you have outside-the-box cards to suggest, ship the ideas along!

Angelic Renewal:  Especially nice after a board-sweeper to let you bring back that creature that you really want. Remember that this will trigger with each creature, but you have a choice during resolution of that trigger. I’m sure it can be added to Sun Titan or Karmic Guide chains for more value.

Augury Adept:  One of our local players (I think it’s Kyle in his "life gain matters" deck) is using this, and the first time I saw it in action I knew that I wanted to play with it. I’m going to make room for it in Phelddagrif. When it comes down early and there’s always someone open to attack, there’s serious value here.

Call to Mind:  For the blue mage who isn’t also running green, Call to Mind is likely to get your important things back like draw spells, counterspells, or Bribery.

Carpet of Flowers:  One green mana could end up netting you a great deal. Even if there’s only one blue player at your table, you can get a great deal of mileage from it. I don’t even want to think about it in Omnath.

Carry Away:  We spend time blowing up people’s equipment. Why not just make better use for them ourselves?

Caverns of Despair and Dueling Grounds:  They basically do the same thing with one instead of two. Both can slow down the onrushing hordes of Saprolings, Slivers, and Plant tokens you’re likely to see, not to mention most other great tribes like Zombies and Vampires. I think I’m going to have to find room in my Ruhan deck for Caverns of Despair so that it can combo with Angel’s Trumpet.

Cephalid Constable:  Probably mostly useful in a game where you’re playing a fair amount of control in order to clear the way. The thing you probably see with him is equipping him with a Sword of some kind to give him protection, and then swinging through for bounce shenanigans.

Crackdown:  I don’t think it’s just for the Mono-White decks. There’s a great deal of fat in the format, and keeping it locked down is a good idea. This Meekstone-like effect makes me wonder why we don’t see more Meekstone.

Crawlspace:  This is Caverns of Despair for anyone to use, with the upside that you can block with as many guys as you want.

Crib Swap:  I’ve talked over the past several weeks about how I like exile more and more in the format, and Crib Swap is a great answer to things that just don’t go away. Dark Ascension’s undying mechanic makes it even more valuable. Also, turning Darksteel Colossus into a 1/1 is all kinds of good.

Dance of Many:  We’ve seen in Standard Phantasmal Image be a legendary creature slayer for just two mana, and here’s another way at the same converted mana cost.

Deglamer and Disempower: Deglamer shuffles it in and Disempower puts it on top, costing them a draw. The most relevant use is probably for indestructible artifacts, especially when someone might have Mycosynth Lattice and Forge[/author]“]Darksteel [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] ruling the board.

Elkin Lair: I’m sure this is the card most of you are going to have to go look up. I sure did when someone suggested it to me. It’s clearly a weapon against control and reactive strategies, which fits in with red being the enemy of such things. Note that it’s a world enchantment so make sure no one plays Forsaken Wastes right after.

Engulfing Slagwurm:  If being 7/7 isn’t enough to keep things off your back, the triggered ability kills nearly anything that dares get in its way. Giving it trample would be additionally spicy because whatever it destroys will be gone before damage is assigned. The life gain is just gravy.

Exhume:  A card that saw a good deal of play in the early days of the format, it seems to have fallen out of favor a bit. If you’re ready for it and your opponents aren’t (maybe through use of Tortured Existence below), you can be off to the races.

Eye of Singularity:  I have previously gotten blown out by Leyline of Singularity, which is probably still a very interesting card. The Eye is a little more interesting in that if someone has something cool and you have one of your own (or a Clone/copy effect), you can blow up theirs and still have yours. This is because copy effects usually happen as the permanent comes into play, so by the time the Eye of Singularity trigger happens, the new copy already as the name of the old thing. So techy. Obviously also takes out mass token-creation engines like Avenger of Zendikar or Decree of Justice.

Fecundity:  I’m generally not a fan of helping my opponents draw cards, and it’s a card you don’t want to let loose without some planning but if you’re ready for it, you’ll have a huge upper hand. Swarm/token decks love it because they’re simply out-drawing opponents. You’ll need to be careful with recursion decks, like Karador, Ghost Chieftain, but combining it with things like Underworld Dreams or even Psychosis Crawler could be nuts.

Fire Covenant:  Would you trade some life now to take out a bunch of things that will deal lots of damage to you down the road? Of course you would. I’ll just say one other word to go with this:  repercussions.

Forsaken Wastes:  Life gain is a little more important in my opinion than many people give it credit for. Since there are so many big, beefy creatures, having a few extra turns where you can’t be attacked is a good thing. I’m seeing a fair number of people looking quite greedily at Drogskol Reaver, which made me think of this card. I might consider the whole "can’t gain life" suite of Everlasting Torment, Leyline of Punishment, and Stigma Lasher.

Greenseeker:  When someone suggested this card to me, my first thought was, "Why am I not playing this in Karador?" Obviously any green deck with a recursion element will really love it.

Imp’s Mischief:  In a world where blue and red are the colors you need to worry about retargeting stuff, Imp’s Mischief comes so far out of left field that it was at the hot dog stand behind the bleachers.

Invader Parasite:  I talked about this a few weeks ago so it’s less hidden, but nonetheless, the Invader is getting permanently rid of problematic lands.

Legacy’s Allure: Legacy’s Allure is actually the card that got me started thinking about doing another Hidden Gems list. It’s a little slow, but you’d be surprised how much of a rattlesnake it can be. Players will actively avoid dropping something good because of the threat of you stealing it.

Liar’s Pendulum:  I love game-within-the-game cards. Since I don’t generally play decks with huge surprises (it’s not a surprise when I have Fling in Kresh the Bloodbraided) or decks that need to conceal a great deal of information, this is excellent. I wouldn’t play it, for example, in Ruhan.

Lightning Coils:  Kill my dudes? No, my dudes kill you! That you don’t sacrifice the Lightning Coils and it can recharge gives it quite some legs.

Mercy Killing:  Yes, Swords to Plowshares is better, but sometimes we need more and different answers to that which plagues us. The major use is probably taking care of something indestructible, but remember you can use it on your own guy, too. Swing with a fatty then cast this to give you a bunch of blockers in a tight spot, or just turn it into value when someone tries to steal it.

Miraculous Recovery:  Look closely. This is an instant!!! Holy blowout, Batman! Not particularly techy in your Black/White Undying deck, but otherwise fantastic.

Mogg Infestation:  You want to double your Goblins or turn an army of fliers into ground-pounders? Here’s how.

Murderous Spoils:  It’s somewhat pricey, but given that it’s an instant and you steal the equipment, it’s definitely a two-for-one.

Nature’s Will:  It only triggers once, but it’s Bear Umbra that doesn’t stop. Being able to cast stuff, attack, and then cast more stuff seems good to me. I’d suggest some trample being involved there.

Paleoloth:  I’d call this more of a "lost" gem than a hidden one. It was all the rage when it came out, but we haven’t seen very much of it lately. In fact, I don’t think it’s even in my Beast deck, a situation that will have to change.

Phyrexian Reclamation:  I love Oversold Cemetery, but it’s conditional. The two life isn’t really significant, so the cost of casting and activating this is seriously aggressive.

Raging River:  Yes, it has a wall of text and an odd ability. It’s definitely a Richard Garfield card. Giving you blocking choices circumvents a single, high-quality blocker keeping a great deal off of someone’s face. Note that a creature that enters the battlefield after the trigger resolves won’t be able to block at all.

Reality Ripple:  This seems like an inexpensive way to disrupt combo decks or for decks that don’t pack a great deal of removal to at least get something out of combat. For saving your own guys, it’s better than having to bounce them and recast. It can’t help a planeswalker, but what are you gonna do?

Righteous Fury:  Especially if you’re playing in an environment where there’s lots of attacking, you could get serious value out of it. Even when there is less attacking, you could get a fair amount of mileage out of end of turn Cryptic Command, Aether Shockwave, or even Turnabout before letting your fury get righteous.

Rise / Fall:  Only available to your Grixis and five-color decks, both of these are pretty nice effects at very little mana. I’d most likely be casting the Rise half, but you never know.

Scarwood Bandits:  Sometimes you just need to steal artifacts. The creature type is Human Rogue now, if you’re interested. There are only four Human Rogues with green in them. Looking at the list, I have to wonder why I’m not playing Kessig Cagebreakers.

Scorched Ruins:  I don’t know about the environment that you play in, but this would be pretty safe here. Since the league has penalties for mass land destruction, we don’t see too much of it, and targeted land destruction is generally reserved for the problem ones, like Cabal Coffers, Academy Ruins, and Gaea’s Cradle.

Shard Convergence:  Your five color decks will obviously love this, but there are a number of three color ones that can make good use of it as well. It’s not quite as good as Skyshroud Claim or Explosive Vegetation, but nonetheless can certainly help you get there.

Seedguide Ash:  Another card that I’m not certain why I’m not playing. It’s a mid-sized beater that dares you to kill it.

Silverglade Pathfinder:  Even better than Greenseeker, although the casting cost and activation cost are both one more expensive.

Soltari Visionary:  With all the great enchantments running around out there, I think we still don’t see enough removal. Trygon Predator is great if you’re playing both green and blue, but if you’re in white this guy is effectively unblockable.

Spitting Image:  You’re playing green so you probably are also playing Yavimaya Elder, so the retrace isn’t going to be a problem. Seems like you could chain the two of them together pretty well, given enough mana.

Strands of Night:  The mana cost is a little high, and you’d have to also consider a plan to replay the Swamps (Crucible of Worlds maybe?), but someone else’s Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will help fuel you especially if you’re also running Land Tax. The ability to put creatures back onto the battlefield at instant speed is kind of crazy.

Sun Droplet:  Again, I know the life gain detractors won’t like this one, but it’s basically prevention of four damage a turn cycle. If there are any turns where you don’t get attacked, you start gaining back that life. Perhaps adding this to a deck in which you’re playing Pestilence…

Supply / Demand:  This is another great flexibility card, notably in that it does two radically different things. It can fetch your general from your library if it’s been tucked (unless you’re playing Omnath, in which he deserves his lost-in-the-shuffle fate) or it can fuel up your Saproling decks.

Teferi’s Response:  Another card that saw plenty of action in the early days of the format when Rishadan Port was still popular, it can be extremely good with your manlands like Treetop Village. If you’re playing with Academy Ruins, I can’t imagine not playing with this.

Temporal Isolation:  A great and inexpensive card for dealing with indestructible creatures or even better, problematic generals. Since you’re just putting them in shadow-land, they can’t get recast.

Tortured Existence:  In a deck that likes to reanimate stuff, this seems so terribly cheap. Just like with Survival of the Fittest, one of my favorite plays with this is to discard Big Game Hunter.

Yavimaya Dryad:  The Dryad is interesting. It can get you duals and shocks, but at three mana we’re starting to get into two land territory (Cultivate)—but being a creature (especially in a deck like Karador), it’s going to come back a few times. The forestwalk is relevant because there are definitely Forests out there, but the two power isn’t all that spicy unless there is equipment involved. There are two downsides compared to Wood Elves: the extra green in the mana cost and the land comes in tapped. The upsides are the forestwalk and greater power.

Especially when you have multiple decks, don’t let yourself get trapped into the same old all the time. I hope these 50 different (ideally new and interesting) ways of Embracing the Chaos have spawned some ideas for you or given you new tricks to put into your existing Commander decks.