Battle Tier List | Commander Clash Podcast 92 

Just a suggestion for the editor (Tomer?). If you have episodes like this that are discussing double sided cards, it might be worth modifying whatever templating you are using to display the cards to show both sides of the cards at the same time, rather than just looking at the one side of the card in the center of the video. Perhaps two images could be put side by side or top/bottom to show the full card details.

Richard - 3 players with interaction will stop you Me - watches commander clash and never sees more than 1 player with interaction... hm... battles might be good lol

Arcavios is the name of the plane, Strixhaven is the name of the school

Just give the Battle to the player who refuses to pay the 1 for Rhystic Study. If he refuses to give up 1 mana to prevent you from drawing a card, do you really think he’s going to pony up a creature to block when you’re not even attacking him directly?

Richard seems like that guy ,who would say he hates all these cards , but when he plays, he has all of them in his deck , and thinks hes cooler than the other side of the pillow

Tomer fighting for his life from the editing room

I really like how this crew compliments each other with their varied play styles.

They really need to learn that if somethings strong enough people want to kill you, THAT MAKES IT A GOOD CARD 😂

I think flipping battles in commander is probably easier than you guys gave credit for. Are you going to bother defending a battle at a loss to yourself when it's helping 2 of your opponents effectively?

People forgot that Invasion of Zendikar also triggers landfall when you "cast" the creature/land side.

I quite like battles so far. I think they are generally more cool/fun than good, and I prefer a design philosophy that prioritizes fun cards over strong cards. I like them.

i love Tomer's editing comments XD

Invasion of Ikoria is a 2 mana ramp spell that looks for a Dryad Arbor, gives you 2 devotion, and lets you possibly flip into the back side. For three mana, it ramps you into Birds or any other 1 cost mana dork, and gives you three devotion. It can also still look for any other creatures you want. Very good battle. IMO probably the best one.

47:37 I’m a fan of invasion of Gobakhan it’s cheap to get out and easy to pop. Then the backside being a boost to your board and an emergency board wipe protection.

Ok Phil, hear me out about invasion of zendikar: when you flip it, you trigger risen reef Boom, broke the format

I think Invasion of Vryn deserves a shoutout, and *at least* a solid B. 4 mana for an enter the battlefield trigger that draws 3 cards then discards 1. Sure, for 4 mana, Fact or Fiction digs deeper and at instant speed. But *on an etb*-- what else does this in blue? Mulldrifer draws 2 for 5 mana, or 3 mana evoked. Only 4 damage to flip it. Then it becomes Overloaded Mage-Ring, an artifact with "1, tap, sac: copy target spell you control (a copy of a permanent spell becomes a token)". Brago and Yorion love the front side. Brudiclad and populate strategies love the backside, which makes a token copy. But, most importantly, aren't both sides just generically good? The front side may be slightly overcosted for card draw (compared to Harmonize) but the back side is a damn good bargain for copying anything and it's one of the easier battles to flip. Every deck wants to draw cards, and every deck has plenty of spells they'd be happy to copy. You could make the argument for pushing this to A.

Note: if you do what Phil said, turn the Battle into a Human and Moonmist it, it will only be ok if the flip-side is a permanent. For the ones that are Sorceries on the flip side, that wont work so well…

I run invasion of Ikoria in my Yarok list and I like the tradeoff of while it doesn't have instant speed applications like Chord of Calling, if Yarok is in play its a double tutor which is just absolutely bonkers

Invasion of Zendikar can be 3 landfall triggers in the same turn, provided it resolves and you can flip it on the same turn!

This was a fun episode, and I especially LOVED Tomer’s comments

Richard talking about preoperative prices at 47:00 needs to remember the ones he mentioned as "people being more excited for cause they were priced higher" needs to remember all the ones he mentioned as being pricer than invasion of Fiora are mythics. Rarity effects prices too

Maybe it's just my playgroup - very little hands-on experience with battles so far - but the thought process with actually defending battles (when the combat is going to threaten *any* creature loss if defended) shakes out with players just viewing a battle being attacked as "at least I didn't take that damage to the face." Finding a player with the weakest board of creatures has been pretty easy to result in defeated battles - the thought process probably being not wanting to risk getting further behind the table by risking committed resources for a low perceived value (to successfully defend) - kinda like how people are reluctant to pay the tax on a rhystic study-ish effect as the first player affected...which quickly results in more players also opting to not pay the tax.

I know saying it can be blinked is a meme but for invasion of zendikar there isn’t really anything that cheap that gets you 2 lands so I would slam this in any blink deck that could target it

How is it hard to hit battles, but super easy to immediately swing out a player that just played a sol ring? Doesn't make sense.

I like how Richard always talks about people having interaction to make cards worse while telling everyone to not play interaction.

Seth in the strokes shirt made my day lol

One line of play where it might be good to attack someone’s battle is to make them have to cast the transformed side as a battle, either to counter it, if they’re tapped out and you have Thalia or Grand Arbiter(they won’t be able to pay the 1 to cast it).Honestly if it is a weaker battle you may even want to flip it just for a rhystic study trigger.

Richard: "...but what about Craterhoof?!" Bro that shit is expensive ass hell lmao

Richard always hates on new cards lol

You can play the Battle on someone and make deals to allow you to flip it without blocks.

I think Seth's perspective on new cards makes more sense for the new player or the player on a budget, because he's not mentally weighing every new cards against every other card in Magic, while Richard absolutely is.

Seeing them look like normal cards when they're in your hand on Arena made me realize they never had to be horizontal to begin with. Its so frustrating lol.

Important thing about the invasion of Ikoria is that it's the only X green tutor that is also a permanent, very relevant with cards like Muldrotha, Yarok, Grolnok or any card that recurs permanents from the graveyard specifically. Also not to underestimate it's capability to just be a reanimating spell in green

The hate for invasion of zendikar because you only run 2 basics in a deck is some REAL bougie vibes

A design I'd like to see for battles is payoffs for dealing combat damage. It would create interesting decisions, perhaps deciding to attack with less damage to get more triggers out of it, or to entice other players to attack the battle and help you flip it.

You can't flip copys of battles. You have to exile them and then cast the other side. The token copy does not survive the exile part.

Honestly I prefer Invasion of Ikoria over Green sun Zenith just because it can target creature in my graveyard, can hit NON GREEN cards and also can become a wincon in some situations. I don't get why nobody mentioned this.

Something I have found is that the battles help with devotion, so you can leave them out and your opponents may actually be incentivized to flip it for you.

The argument against gobakhan being that people won't board wipe you had me so confused

i am a super fun of guildpact two colored golden decks and trust me the backside of Ravnica is SICK especially if you combine it with tome of the guildpact. Invasion of Ravnica is my new premium colorless tool in all my guildpact decks including Tome of the Guildpact , Glass of the Guildpact , Seal of the Guildpact

I am with disembodied Tomer on the Invasion of Alara. Just pulled one and immediately added it to my Ramos deck!

Thank you Seth for defending Ixalan. I'm using it in an Abzan Doom Foretold deck and it works fine. Gets me any card I want and stays as a permanent that I can later sacrifice.

I think the front of Gonakhan is better than it looks. Everyone is scary in commander, but people get afraid of the board, not cards they can't see. When you reveal someone's scary hand, people will start attacking them before they get to do the scary thing that they KNOW is coming.

I must say, as a commander player I don't quite like battles. I would have rather preferred them to be a fringy commander thing with more interaction between players ("who wins the battle earns the reward in the back of the card") than the current state

I have an Anhelo spellslinger deck, and I purposefully put Render Inert into my deck, along with Invasion of Arcavios, because in that deck it functionally becomes an 8 mana swarm intelligence that draws two cards on cast. Pretty easy infinite combos to pull off once you flip this. Very good card.

Invasion of Gobahkan is a Heroic Intervention in white. Yeah it's got some hoops to jump through but Heroic Intervention is still 20 plus dollars.

In many cases Invasion of Ikoria is better than Chord of Calling. Chord of Calling is instant but Ikoria has the upside of being cheaper and also searching your graveyard. Green mostly doesn't care about humans and Ikoria can flip into the dino.

Invasion of Zendikar is good. Not busted by any means but definitely a staple ramp card from now on.

To be fair, future battle cards could work more like what Richard was talking about at the end. I mean, probably not exactly like that bc of the rules of magic, but front side lets you choose any player (including self) to defend it. Could even have a symetrical effect on front side that goes away when defeated...only to have the backside be abother battle with an opposing symetrical effect. So then the mini game is "who wants which side" etc.

Invasion of Alara is so fun. Happily found a home in Omnath, Locus of All. 😊

I could hear Tomer screaming at Seth through his edits. Loved it.

small disagree on invasion of gobakhan: this is insane good in most decks esp with tokens or go wide. you have a two mana peek, reveal information about one spell to each player and stax it a little (you most likely choose something that hurts you most or get a deal). this alone is really good and then on backside you have a pump effect and a heroic intervention for creatures.... there are only really few spells as good as this at 2 mana! the biggest downside is you put +1/+1 counters, cause this maybe waist time.

Now I want to see Brewers kitchen make a werewolf battle flip deck lol

I'm really excited to see how Invasion of Segovia performs in my Elminster deck

I recently just made a Ramos, Dragon Engine Commander deck with a lot of battles and it gets pretty crazy when I cast “begin the invasion” for five with Ramos’s second ability

I am really surprised about your evaluation of Invasion of Tolvada. The card is fantastic in most token strategies. You say that "token strategies have nothing to reanimate", but you can get back any Anointed Procession type permanent, any Bitterblosm type permanent, or any of the many, many creatures that are good in token strategies. The backside acts as an anthem that makes more tokens every turn. The card is gas in token decks.

I think the thing that was missed on Ergamon is the back can tutor *nonbasic* lands, which is a bit more relevant than other things

I do think they completely miss the point that for lower budget decks many of these cards will be fantastic as replacements for more expensive cards

ergmon back gets gaea's craddle, cabal coffers (jund), strip mine, for free its definitely playable in a gruel deck.

Love the t shirt Seth!

Please stop saying that a card is bad because your opponents will just swing you out. About the same as dies to removal as an argument.

I've been thinking about a Glissa Sunslayer deck, and I think battles would be great in it.

I love Invasion of New Capenna in my Clavileno aristocrats deck. I get to sac a creature and exile something to proc all my death triggers, then one of the 4/3 flyers can flip it the turn I play it usually.

Invasion of Ravnica is GAS in my Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice deck for Historic Brawl on MTGA. Turn4 Aurelia, Turn 5 Invasion, Aurelia swings from the air for 4 with her ability, then you get to flip this thing and abuse it. I LOVE IT SO MUCH

I'd like to see some battles that give a benefit when you attack it so everyone has a reason to attack it but they risk giving you the transformed effect. Or a battle that has some kind of group slug effect that only goes away when its defeated.

my thoughts on some of the cards are: Fiora is when its flipped its pretty much the same threat as a phyrexian arena with it costing you 1 to draw but its also decent blocker Gobakhan it triggers the turn you swing into flip it so in richards birds case he swing with the birds flip it and at the end his birds get bigger rather than needing to wait especially if your creatures are both evasive AND have vigilance since they can swing in without worry and still be up for blocking on the crackback Kaldheim the back is like the lands edge world enchantment where instead of being able to discard any card for madness and dealing damage if it was a land you instead can only discard lands but get to play the top of your deck

Invasion of Theros is a 3 mana BLINKABLE permanent, in the best colors for blinking.

Did I miss it, or where is the complete overview - like the typical "tier list" template, which is even used in the thumbnail - would be really nice to have something like that

Invasion of Zendikar is gas in my budget Omnath, Locus of the Roil deck. - I run 30 basics - Omnath is 3 power, so Cosmic Hunger, the new fight spell, instantly flips it - the backside triggers landfall

I quite like Fiora. BW legends is a theme, white gives blink effects and black gives scam effects. I also really want to get a Marit Lage into play with Marchesa.

On the invasion of tarkir if you have three dragons in hand since it’s an etb it can hit itself and it’s just a 2 mana 4/4 flying trample and everything else the backside does

The convoke battle is soooo strong Cant believe that it got Bs!

i don't care what i or anybody does turn 2 in edh. you got my attention if you go off turn 1 because now you're like 3 turns ahead but if you sol ring into arcane signet turn 2 you're still not swinging till turn 4.

I already found spots for a few of them. Ikoria in Xenagos. New Capenna in Trynn&Silvar. Thinking the boardwipe/Marchesa and the reanimator one for Aminatou. I really liked the way these played in limited, hoping they'll add some fun to commander too. Excited to see how they evolve if we see them again going forward.

I like Battles but like Planeswalkers, it will take time to figure out how to make them cool and fun while balancing power. this is just round one.

Invasion of New Phyrexia is amazing in the new Sidar Knights deck and Invasion of Shandalar and Tarkir are must includes in dragon tribal decks, I run both in Miirym!

I have a question. Would battles auto flip if there is a solemnity on the battlefield? Also, you could just flip them with resourceful defense activated ability

All of the complaints Tomer has for battles from a design perspective are the issue with DFCs, which have been a thing for over a decade and a fan-favorite mechanic.

Ikoria is amazing in any green big creature decks. You should be able to pop that 6 easily same turn it comes out if you're playing big creatures especially Naya Big Creatures.

not that it's a bad take, but crucifying invasion of new phyrexia like they did without reading the new esper knight commander does the card dirty. its CRAZY good in the deck, but as tomers editor note stated, its kinda meh outside

I like invasion of new cappena in my lurris deck of all things. it's removal that I can cast from my graveyard if I discard or mill it

Invasions of ikoria is nice with muldrotha another permanent type is always nice And the invasion marchesa board wipe too

Battles add to delirium count too 👌

I feel like with invasion of fiora is a good option because damnation and toxic deluge are frickin expensive cards. Budget is nice! It’s a rare!

Ergamon thingy that id like to bring up. Youre not playing it in a gruul deck, youre probably playing it in a 4 or 5 color, maybe even 3 color for a 2 mana discard draw card and create a mana fixing treasure. I like it in ramos because of all of the different color pips on cards i have, and i can grab one of the good battles if i flip it. Its not that great on the backside so people wont really care if you attack it.

Seth is right about Ravnica. In a colorless deck it's effectively a 2.5 mana exile spell. You guys still don't realize that colorless decks are the best at ramping.

Kaldheim is probably a high B, it's great with treasures like in prosper but i'm not sure it's even good anywhere else. I'm putting new capenna in varina zombies, front is on rate and the back could be busted.

The fact that we approached battles from what we all can agree as a “safe approach” i think is a very healthy and positive thing. If they were very strong and meta warping. I think we would view them like Companions. And we know most people rate them as the worst thing ever

1:30:30 I Agree with editor tomer they are cool design space but dont really work in paper, i had such an annoying time during my draft of constantly having to ask to be asked about what the backside of all my cards did. i had an elesh norn too and i forgot what she did when she flipped so i have to grab it off the table and read it

Invasion of ergamon is pretty good in jund reanimation or discard decks.

Invasion of tolvada is awesome for WB Abdel Adrian decks.

Sunblast Angel is an etb board wipe, albeit a situational one.

Green zun, just search one creatura green, ikoria any color +reanimatre in mono green

Best thing about Battles - they are spells who work with Primal Surge.

You guys missed the fact battle of shandalar can bring back more battles!

So I think the big bonus of fiora is that it’s a permanent so it’s blinkable. It’s a boardwipe whenever you want. Also I would play it in aminatou purely cause it blinks it and marchesa incentivizes people attacking me instead of my planeswalkers which I prefer.

Battles are a bit like songs in disney lorcana. you tap a sufficiently large creature to "cast a spell for free." And that's kind of how you have to evaluate these things. For the purpose of these battles, your creature now essentially "tap for mana equal to their power". Often times, in a 4-player pod with 40life starting totals, flipping a battle and enabling synnergies with the rest of your deck will be wort way mor than dealing 5 damage to one opponent. Not always, but just like any other card during edh-deckbuilding, you don't just put it in because you think it's cool but because of synnergies.

I think what you suggested how battles work would’ve been cool like a global effect gives more or less incentive for it to flip

"at 5 knights it would be good" sees card and it will probably make 5 knights at turn 5-6. "at that point you should be winning the game", the average commander clash game goes to turn 10. Am i missing something?

Was building a five-color Ramos battles deck ended up removing all the battles