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Get a Clue, You!
Hey gamers! This past weekend I did well enough in Commander Challenge to get my hands on most of the Ravnica: Clue Edition box.
What do I mean by most? The pack of the unique Suspect cards, 4 of the 8 jumpstart-style mashup packs, and the box and other stuff. Other players won the other packs and box topper respectively.
Today I’m going to review the unique Clue-themed cards in the Suspect pack, and any cool new cards I pulled from the mashup packs. We played with them first, of course! Let’s go!
Instruments of Murderousness!
There are 5 new pieces of equipment, one in each colour. I’ll be reviewing them in worst-to-best order.
The Clue weapon I like least is Knife, which is probably the most effective real-life weapon of the group. The main upside here is the low casting cost and Clue ability to sacrifice it to draw a card. 2 mana isn’t great, but instant speed is, and if you’re equipment-heavy, you can expect some artifact sweeper at some point.
There are minor other upsides, like enabling devotion, providing a sacrifice trigger, or just being a red card, but that’s about it. Notice I didn’t mention the equip effect itself, which is rather dreadful. I don’t know why it’s only a bonus on your turn. +1/+0 and First Strike for 2 equip cost isn’t very good, and doesn’t need further restriction. Even without the drawback, this is probably the worst of the cycle.
Next up is Wrench, which has most of the same upsides as Knife when it comes to being a Clue and such. Both red and white struggle to draw cards sometimes, and it can make a little difference.
The ability on Wrench is better, however, and Vigilance can be a real powerhouse if it’s on something big and/or flying. The tapdown ability is mana-intensive, but possibly useful. What really separates this from Knife is a better stat boost that doesn’t go away if it’s not your turn.
While I do think that Rope is a better piece of equipment than either of the red or white clues, I feel like there are a lot more red/white decks looking to play cheap equipment than there are in green. And adding an extra mana in the equip cost is a real thing, even for a mana-drenched colour like green.
What makes Rope ultimately better than Knife and Wrench is that the combo of abilities are solid, go great with Voltron, and aren’t that common. Reach and having to be blocked by only one creature are terrific for stuff like going after the Monarch/Intiative, or protecting it. You have a lot of say in combat, and it really shines alongside Vigilance, which is a strange thing to say, but yeah. The stat boost is also decent. Arguably the best of the cycle, anyway.
Also vying for best stat boost is Lead Pipe, which also has the best out-of-combat ability. +2/+0 is pretty real in a world of Double Strike and Commander damage, but the passive ability, where each opponent loses 1 life when the equipped creature dies, is a possible game winner and definite deterrent to killing your creature.
Sure it’s very slow, and the equip cost has to be respected or cheated, but incremental life-loss like this is hard to stop and can add up quickly. If this caused a single player to lose 3 life, it would probably be too strong, but with the way it is, in Commander, you’re often netting the same overall lifeloss. And I’m sure you can find some sacrifice synergy somewhere. I’d love this in my Jon Irenicus, Shattered One deck.
Coming in first among the new equips is a blue equip, of all things, the very dangerous and imposing Candlestick! Watch out, The Dark! Prepare to be lit up!
Blue has the most Clue and card draw synergy, so that’s already a good start, but adding Surveil here is the recipe for success. This would look really good on a cheap flyer or unblockable creature to get that Surveil every turn. Surveil 2 is really, really good, regardless of whether or not you’re doing graveyard stuff.
I would play this in a number of concepts I’ve tried recently, including Jon Irenicus, Shattered One, and Bilbo, Retired Burglar. Both decks like combat, and are rarely concerned with blockers. Both would love the kind of sweet draw-sculpting that Surveil 2 enables. The little stat boost is unnecessary, and maybe even unwelcome in some situations, but it sure makes Knife look bad. And that’s something.
Rooms of Peril!
These are pretty much all the same, though a few colour combos, like blue/green and blue/white, have more Clue synergy than others. Still, a lot of decks like artifacts, sacrificing artifacts, tokens, and drawing extra cards.
Being 2 colours means they have less application in Commander than monocoloured lands would be. Which is fine. The decks that want Clues in bunches would be happy to play these, and most other decks would pass them up for lands that come into play untapped. I don’t see myself playing these a lot, but I’m glad I have them.
Suspicious Characters of… Suspicion!
The real meat of the Clue box is the 6 Legendary creatures inside. I’m not sure why there’s an extra white/red one, but whatever. Again, I’ll rank them from what I think is the worst to the best.
Coming in last is blue politician Senator Peacock, tailfeathers drooping sadly. For starters, a 5 mana 3/4 Human Advisor is not great. But being mono-blue, what did I expect.
The first ability, turning all of your artifacts into clues, is decent, and really strong in a few corner cases, like alongside Lonis, Cryptozoologist. But it’s also very mana intensive to use, and doesn’t really contribute to a proactive gameplan by itself. Plus you’re sacrificing your artifacts.
Which brings up the second ability, making a creature unblockable if you sacrifice a clue. This does sort of enable a wincon, but is clunky based on the amount of help it needs. What creature? The Senator? Where’s the clue coming from, because Senator Peacock doesn’t come with one.
As a Commander, this lends itself to Voltron using the Senator as the killing blow, alongside a lot of equipment, lock pieces and control spells. Seems slow and not much fun.
Next up is Apothecary White, who is a better deal at base than the Senator as a 4 mana 3/4 Human Cleric. Cleric is a supported type, and only one white mana symbol in the cost makes this more splashable too. Vigilance doesn’t hurt either.
The first ability is good. Making Food tokens is okay by itself, but has a lot of synergy these days, especially with Lord of the Rings cards. The ability to make up to 3 per Commander turn is quite good, and since it doesn’t require the Apothecary to attack, is an effect you can expect to stick around a bit.
The second ability is also good. Turning Food tokens into Human tokens is a good move, especially because it doesn’t sacrifice the Foods. Since it can be done cheaply and at instant speed by the Vigilant Apothecary, the ability can generate a ton of value very fast. Human is a good type and has a lot of synergy.
The main knock on this card is that it’s a little boring. Making Foods and 1/1s is fine, but not very exciting, and plenty of cards already do similar things. And you need a lot of Foods, 1/1s or a lot of support to turn any of this into a win. Doable, but a bit limited. Should be great for a few Lord of the Rings Commanders.
Next up is Emissary Green who does a lot of good things, but I feel suffers from synergy issues a bit. But only a bit. At 5 mana (only one coloured, though), a 3/3 Human Advisor isn’t much to look at immediately, but he might be a 6/6 on his first attack. Once opponents figure out exactly what he does, it’s likely removal will come before too many more attacks.
What he promises to do is make opponents make awkward choices. Either you get treasure, or your creatures get bigger, including him. Both voting options are really good for you, honestly, and if he is allowed to live a few turns, could take over the game.
The synergy suffers a bit from him providing mana and +1/+1 counters, which are both things that green doesn’t need a lot of help doing. It’s a little win-more, which isn’t a terrible problem to have though. The Emissary also suffers a bit from very few green voting cards. As a Commander, there’s not much to augment him. As a 99er, though, he’s strong as is in a combat oriented deck, or great in the small number of multicoloured voting decks with green in them. Mostly LotR.
Next up is the only multi-coloured card on the list, Commander Mustard, who is designed to be in the Command Zone. Boasting solid stats as a five mana 5/5 Human Soldier with Vigilance, he’s off to a roaring start. However, there’s a massive amount of difference between power 5, 6, and 7 when it comes to Commanders, because it means Commander lethal in 5, 4 and 3 hits respectively. Anything less and it’s not realistic, and more doesn’t make things quicker until you hit 11, which is a lot for any creature to have.
All that to say that Commander Mustard seems large but isn’t going to get the job done by himself. Which is fine because he’s quite a great enabler for Soldiers, giving your other ones Vigilance, Trample and Haste, all of which are great abilities. Soldiers are cheap and plentiful in Magic, and those abilities can help get the job done.
There is one issue with Soldiers, and that is that they’re typically quite small. Trample isn’t much on a 1/1, and Vigilance isn’t good on a creature that likely won’t survive combat if it attacks. That’s an issue for Soldiers, and Mustard doesn’t help that aspect of things.
However, if you can find a way to mitigate their fragility with embiggening, or something like Iroas, God of Victory, Dolmen Gate or even Bubble Matrix, the second ability on Mustard is really intriguing. It stacks, so you can activate it multiple times and have each attacking Soldier deal multiple damage to the defending player.
Add it all up and you’ve got a stew going, by which I mean the beginnings of a gameplan. Makes me want to build a deck, and that’s pretty sweet. Some of the previous cards on this list are probably stronger, but none are build-arounds like the new condiment king.
The second best of the group is the red Headliner Scarlett, who is clearly from the Rakdos guild (which would probably be my guild as well). I’m glad she’s only the one colour, though, and quite splashable, requiring only one red to cast. As a 3/3 Human Warlock, the stats and types are okay at best.
The abilities are all something though. Haste is not that great on a random 3/3 Human with no evasion, but it does mean stuff like dealing unexpected damage and/or stealing the Monarch out of nowhere. The threat of that out of the Command Zone, if the Headliner is your Commander, is something for opponents to consider. Red can boost that up quick and make it a problem.
The next ability is more relevant. Stopping one player’s blockers on entry is going to make sure the Headliner gets through, if nothing else. Sometimes it will mean an alpha strike, and if you can have it enter at instant speed, might not even be your alpha strike.
The last ability is the best one however, and in a vacuum, the best ability on any Clue card. Like Outpost Siege and other similar cards, the Headliner lets you exile a card from the top of your library at start of upkeep and play it this turn. It’s basically drawing a card, which is fantastic, but has a number of other synergies too. Doctor Who’s paradox abilities care about casting from places other than hand. Opposing cards like Orcish Bowmasters and Smothering Tithe, for example, care about cards drawn. This gets around them.
The pseudo-card-draw in this way is almost always good, and having the other abilities added on make this an overall excellent package. I’d consider it for a lot of the red decks I build. But it’s not the best card in the set.
That honor goes to Mastermind Plum, who is cheaper and smaller than the others, but even that is upside. 3 mana (one black, which means easy splash) for a 2/2 Human Wizard is an okay rate, and means Plum will be around early. The p/t hardly matters, though Human Wizard is great synergy for types.
The first ability also hardly matters. Exiling a card from a graveyard and maybe making a treasure is good. Really good! Except Plum needs to attack and he’s a 2/2, so it might not ever come up.
So the final ability has to carry the card, and boy does it ever. When you use a treasure mana to cast a spell, you lose a life and draw a card. While he has the ability to make treasure himself, many many other cards do it way better, and can set up turns where flurries of spells and treasure mana fly around like crazy alongside Plum.
I wouldn’t even consider Plum as a Commander, but any black deck I build that leverages treasure should have him in it. Even if he draws 2 cards it’s huge, and it’s likely going to be a LOT more than that if the treasure is flowing. A very attainable upside combined with the very affordable mana cost just outdoes all the rest of the Clue cards by a mile. If your Commander makes treasure and has a black identity, this might be your new favourite card.
Other New Cards of Note
I imagined a worst-case scenario for my 4 mashup packs. Andrew and I each took two and shuffled them together, and I warned him he was going to pick the worst-case: double Azorius (blue/white).
And of course, what did he get? Double Azorius. I’m now the proud owner of Lavinia of the Tenth (yuck) and Lavinia, Foil to Conspiracy. I don’t mind Clue Lavinia. I may build a Commander deck around her. She’s way better than the other Lavinias, which discourage opponents from doing any gameplay stuff.
Other notable openings from the double Azorius included new cards Suppressor Skyguard which looks like a fantastic addition to Knight decks, and great for defensive strats overall, Portal Manipulator which is more fun than good, and a bunch of good reprints like Supreme Verdict.
I opened Orzhov and Rakdos, and got a Frenzied Gorespawn, which seems fun for multiplayer, a Syndicate Heavy, which is decent enough, and Incriminating Impetus which joins the growing number of Goad auras, and could be fun. The card I’m most stoked about, however, is cool uncommon Afterlife Insurance, which is potentially a lot of value, easy to cast, and cantrips. What’s not to like?
Among the other new cards I didn’t get, the notables include Amzu, Swarm’s Hunger, which is a really cool new Insect Commander that cares about graveyard manipulation and mana value in black/green…
…If you’re already attacking with a small horde every turn, and that’s right on brand for red/white, Boros Strike-Captain is probably netting you an extra card every turn for 3 mana…
…Already getting tested in Eternal formats like Legacy, Carnage Interpreter might be well-known soon enough. There’s a lot going on here, but every part of the card is very strong, doing things like enabling Hellbent, making 4 artifact tokens, and arriving as a 5/5 with Menace, all for 3 hybrid mana. This seems like a possible build-around, though it might be too slow for Legacy. Best use of a hat in any Magic card art…
…While it seems like it could get out of hand quick, Conclave Evangelist is probably more likely to be a win-more card. As a 4/4 with no evasion, it’s not that hard to stop, but if you do get a few hits in with it, you’re going to be unstoppable in short order. Green and white have powerful creatures for 5 mana, and this is another addition to that mix. Not sure it stands out, though…
…A sort-of sleeper to watch out for is Corporeal Projection. Myriad, which creates token copies of the creature with that ability when it attacks, can be strong, but it can also be limited. Attacking is not always viable, and you can’t always use token copies of some creatures, like a Legendary creature. Usually.
But sometimes, like with a Legend like Bilbo, Retired Burglar, you want those copies to instantly accelerate you to level 4 Ringbearer. With other creatures, Myriad is maybe a massive combat swing, maybe a whole lot of chaos, and maybe a bunch of enter or exit triggers. It’s top-notch with Solemn Simulacrum and a sacrifice outlet. The ability to give Myriad to one or more creatures really opens up a lot of possibilities, and Corporeal Projection is pretty flexible itself…
…With synergy all over the place, Dimir Strandcatcher seems pretty Commander playable. Good types, good cost, decent body, flying, Surveils, and even draws you a card each end step if you’ve milled enough, which it can sometimes enable itself. I’m not sure exactly where this fits, but it might fit a lot of concepts ultimately…
…With a reasonable cost, and a very easy trigger to enable, Herald of Ilharg would be solid without the ‘mana value 5’ clause. With that clause, it becomes a serious threat to win games. Casting big things is easy, as is adding counters to this guy. The counters do not have to be +1/+1s, either…
…If you want to Investigate many times, Lonis, Genetics Expert is a really easy way to do that. Putting +1/+1 counters on her is trivial, and will quickly make her quite large and amass you a board full of clues. She synergizes very well with Lonis, Cryptozoologist, but could do great in most blue/green decks. There are probably a few combos available here, especially since the Clues can be sacrificed by any method to trigger her final ability…
…I like Resonance Technician a lot, despite it having one of the worst type lines I’ve ever seen in Weird Detective. This card does a lot. Everything can be leveraged, and the only real downside, having to discard to make clues, is optional. If discard is upside for you, you’re really cooking.
Once Resonance Technician is no longer summoning sick, the tap ability is ready and waiting to do work. Red and blue as a colour combo is flush with easy ways to generate artifacts. Stuff like Clues, Servos, Thopters, Treasures, Constructs, and even Myr, and most of those can be generated by a Commander or two. Even mana rocks and Equipment can get in on the action.
Worst-case scenario, this is a 4/4 flyer for 5. Not a great rate, but still a creature worth having.
Conclusion
What a weird product. I feel like this was an attempt to jam some Magic FOMO into another Hasbro property that the execs thought needed some juice. Clue doesn’t sell in the billions, so why not bring it back with a few exclusive cards that Magic players might miss out on if they don’t buy the Clue box. It even comes with a lottery card, the Shock Land Boxtopper.
I get having 8 mashup packs instead of 10 (one of each colour) because that means 4 players. But it means doubles, and accommodating a potential 5th player is reasonable. Not doing a mashup pack for each of the 10 guilds feels cheap. Like they wanted to maximize the possibility you won’t get what you wanted and will have to buy another.
I do like the cards and the designs, and I’m super happy to have them, because I would never consider buying the Clue Box myself.
Incidentally, the Clue subgame can be played easily with proxies or actual Clue cards. It’s basically the boardgame, where you get to make a guess when you deal combat damage. It needs some tweaking so players won’t dominate both combat and investigation, and lock out players who can’t attack, or will get hosed by attacking.
Thanks for reading!
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