Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

To say I was excited about this card when it was first spoiled is an understatement. This card is actually completely unprecedented design as a creature that has Storm. Honestly, any permanent with Storm is something many players just never really expected to see, and here it is. But, unfortunately, it’s real, and it’s not very good.

One of the biggest issues with Aeve is that, while it can put a bunch of tokens into play (wherein each of them enters with a +1/+1 counter for each Ooze you control, meaning it doesn’t just get counters for each other one of itself but also the other Ooze you control), this doesn’t mean that they are particularly threatening. You need to wait for an entire turn cycle until you can use them, and they have no protection built in directly. It’s really just not something to get excited about anymore, and it’s honestly just a little sad.

Final Verdict: 2/10: While it is very neat that this card exists and it can do some funky things with Food Chain, the amount of things that already combo with Food Chain is massive and this doesn’t add much new to the deck.

Blessed Respite

This is a really solid card actually, the ability to reshuffle a graveyard is very strong, stronger than most people really realize. The power comes in two folds, you can either use it to refill your deck if you are going through it too quickly, therefore stabilizing yourself again, or you can use it to shut down the graveyard deck by putting it all back into their deck. The cherry on top of this already delicious cake is that you also get to fog the whole board, too, meaning you can do this with very little worry of dying to combat damage. You could also use the fog as its primary ability and get the bonus of shuffling a graveyard as a secondary.

Final Verdict: 7/10: While not every deck in Commander needs these kinds of effects, the decks that want them will happily accept one of this power.

Chatterfang, Squirrel General

So, we finally have our squirrel commander, a Golgari squirrel that is actually pretty darn impressive. It has good stats for its mana cost and naturally has an evasion effect, allowing it to sneak in and deal damage. Being able to get a free squirrel whenever you make a token is a really quite good ability, but the fact you actually get a squirrel for each and every token is ludicrously powerful, especially considering that it even gives you these when you’re making squirrel tokens too. Finally, you can sacrifice your cute little army and give a creature +X/+X, where X is the number of squirrels you throw away. It seems good to have your forest walking commander eat them.

Final Verdict: 9/10: Yes, it’s not Mono-Green, so you need to be in Golgari to play this, but with there already being 418 Chatterfang decks on EDHrec, (that number will only go up), Chatterfang is here to stay, and I for one welcome our new furry overlords.

Chatterstorm

So 2 mana to make a 1/1 is never a good deal, but when you get to make 10 1/1’s for 2 mana, that’s the real spice! Chatterstorm will never easily allow you to do so. A very Green Empty the Warrens that makes fewer tokens but with the upside of it only costing half as much as a powerful card to have in your arsenal, whether you’re playing a squirrel deck or not.

Final Verdict: 6/10: Watch out for this, because token decks have a new toy that isn’t terribly hard to cast for a load of critters!

Chitterspitter

I honestly didn’t think I would be writing this much about squirrels, but here we go for the third card in a row. A three-person artifact allows you to pump out a single squirrel token each turn and sacrifice any token to put an acorn counter on it. Your little friends will each get +1/+1 for each acorn counter on this. Even in non-squirrel decks, this is a card that can both provide fodder for effects and create an ever-growing army, and that is something I am truly excited to see!

Final Verdict: 8/10: One of the best token generating cards I’ve seen in a while, this produces a steady stream of threats and also gives a way for the threats to grow!

Endurance

Well, we did it. We covered all 5 of the Evoke free spell creatures, and the Green one has definitely caused some discourse in the community for just how cost-efficient it is. For just 3 mana, you get a Flash, Reach 3/4 that can also ruin a player’s graveyard, and if you need to deal with the graveyard, you can evoke it out for the cost of a Green card in your hand. This, to me, is one of the many cards designed with 60 card formats in mind where this can block and kill Delver of Secrets all day and make it harder for that deck even to utilize its graveyard themes. However, in Commander, I don’t ever see myself needing to play this when better cards are available.

Final Verdict: 4/10: This isn’t something you ever really need to cast in Commander, plenty better creatures exist, and better graveyard hate exists. It’s an option for sure but just not one I see myself playing any time soon.

Fae Offering

I love value cards, cards that give me many things, even if those things aren’t amazing. Fae Offering is a full-on value fiesta, triggering at everybody’s end step as long as you can keep the supply of a Creature and a non-Creature up, then you get a clue, treasure, and a food token. I can easily see this being thrown into Muldrotha decks with the ease they can keep up the casting of multiple card types in a single turn, and similar decks can easily abuse the power of Fae Offering.

Final Verdict: 7/10: Yes it demands work from you, but if you put the work in, then it will surely shine, giving you a steady stream of tokens that you can enjoy through the game!

Foundation Breaker

While Thrashing Brontadon, Reclamation Sage, and Indrik Stomphowler all do the same effect at either better rates or better stats than the Foundation Breaker, the Breaker has a big upside those other cards in that it is an Elemental. So now your Omnath Elemental deck, Yarok Elementals, and Horde of Notions get access to another powerful Elemental in their now seemingly endless toolbox of strong cards. Also, being able to Evoke this card to literally play a Naturalize is a good deal still.

Final Verdict: 8/10: Yes, this is only really as highly rated as it is for Elemental decks, but even then, I would wager that this is a strong Green card that will continue to see play in the format for some time.

Gaea’s Will

Let’s talk about Yawgmoth’s Will… You’ve likely had this card cast against you or gotten the chance to cast it yourself at least once in Magic, so with Gaea’s Will, my first thought was, “Oh, this can probably only cast creatures. That seems pretty fair and flavourful too!” Yet this is not the case; The final null spell is essentially just Yawgmoth’s Will, but it also allows you to play the lands from your graveyard! So it’s just a flat improvement on one of the best cards ever printed. The catch, however, (and there always is one), is that you have to wait 4 turns until you get the honor to do so. However, with a little lucky Cascade or other cheating effects, this can very easily be manipulated to be cast whenever you need it!

Final Verdict: 8/10: Now, this is a powerful card indeed, even if you just leave it in suspend you will likely be able to cast three or four cards from your graveyard and replay a land, which for the investment of 1 mana and 4 turns is a wonderful deal!

Ignoble Hierarch

I love Noble Hierarch. I’ve cast my fair share of them in Modern and Legacy, so this is a color shift I am all too happy to see. Nearly every Jund deck will have no issue making use of this. Put simply, it’s a mana dork that makes your early attacks incredibly strong, so there honestly isn’t much more I can or need to say about this card. A powerful mana dork that even has a good creature type to boot!

Final Verdict: 9/10: Very almost an auto include in Jund decks, where only the most dedicated decks wouldn’t want to play this card. I cannot wait to sleeve this up and cast this little Ignoble boy.

Sanctum Weaver

So Serra’s Sanctum called, and she wants this card to be White because honestly, I really think this should be; It would only have to tap for White mana, but in my opinion, that wouldn’t be a color pie break at all. With that aside, this card is Green and is absolutely crazy good. A 2 mana dork that always provides at least 1 mana of any one color. Honestly, with just 2 or 3 enchantments, this becomes a serious threat that demands removal as soon as possible, meaning I can see just about every enchantress deck playing this, which I cannot blame them for.

Final Verdict: 10/10: This is in my opinion one of the best cards in the set and whilst it’s not something that can be played in every single Green deck, every enchantress strategy will be wanting this. Unless they’re not in Green, that is… This card will be one of the cards that will make you want to add Green to your deck just so you get the joy of casting it.

Sylvan Anthem

Honor of the Pure has always been considered one of, if not the best White anthem effect ever printed; The efficiency that it offers has never really been competed with. Well, now that Green has its own version of that! Whilst it is very slightly harder to cast (needing 2 Green pips), it offers the same buff yet also allows you to scry 1 every single time a Green creature comes into play, including your tokens. This is not something that every Green deck needs but that most will gladly use one of their card slots for, almost assuredly replacing or competing with Lifecrafter’s Bestiary.

Final Verdict: 9/10: Its strengths are just so high that I cannot envision many times I wouldn’t be happy to see this in my hand, so go ahead and get your copies now!

Thrasta, Tempest’s Roar

I love dinosaurs, and this is a really interesting card for sure. It gets a discount every single time you cast a spell, and when you’ve cast 4 spells, this 7/7 costs only 2 mana to put into play. What you get for your tiny investment is a big stompy T-Rex that can trample over planeswalkers, an effect we have never seen and one I want to be seeing more and more. This is peak Green, and the fact that it also has hexproof the turn it enters play is icing on the cake as your opponents have to let you smash in for 7. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that this goes infinite with Food Chain as your commander.

Final Verdict: 6/10: At the end of the day, yes this is just a big dumb beater, but that is still very okay. Sometimes that’s exactly what you need in a game; Something huge to just hit face.

Timeless Witness

I adore Eternal Witness effects and the sheer comedy of this card being an Eternalize creature is just wonderful. You do need to pay one more for the luxury, but this is still an investment I would be more than happy to pay. Honestly, I think people are still sleeping on this one, some decks actually really want more than one of these effects, so this is the next best equivalent.

Final Verdict: 7/10: Casting this will never feel bad! The fact that you can get another use out of this card with a far more reliable body is a great deal. Sure, it wont be making waves in the format but it’ll be part of the current that keeps our format floating along.

Tireless Provisioner

Having access to the second version of Tireless Tracker but giving it the very useful Elf creature type leads to a super-powerful card. The key thing here is that instead of grabbing clues, it gives you extra mana or food. Everyone raved about this card when it was spoiled, and I honestly think it’s just as good, if not better, than people think it is. It compares so well to Lotus Cobra but may even be a better card than that might snake.

Final Verdict: 10/10: Yes another 10 rated Green card, it just does so much for so little investment. It even functions as a solid attacker so I think it’s safe to assume that this will be seen for years to come.

Verdant Command

Command spells are always really difficult to rate, and you often have to look at the best two modes; If you would cast a card that just did those, then the card is good as the other modes are just bonuses. With Verdant Command, creating the two tokens and exiling a card from a graveyard are certainly the most powerful and often most frequently used aspects. Being able to snipe a card from a player’s graveyard like a powerful flashback card (or a reanimation target) is just so powerful and making 2 extra tokens for future blocks is all gravy. Countering a loyalty ability is pretty powerful, too, especially when used in response to a minus effect where the Planeswalker will often either die or be left in a vulnerable state. That’s something I would gladly pay just 2 mana for.

Final Verdict: 8/10: Offering just so much flexibility is an easy way to make a card good and this card is so incredibly flexible I would never really feel bad casting it.