In the grand ocean of commerce, most items fall into two core buckets: essential and non-essential. Essential items are the things we need throughout the course of our daily lives. Food to eat. Water to drink. Medicine. Clothing. Shelter. These are the most basic physiological requirements for humans to survive, and were the world suddenly to not exist, the scramble for even these most fundamental items takes center stage. Just look at pretty much every post-apocalyptic story out there.

Moving beyond those, you find the next tier of what most people in modern society would also consider essentials – these are goods and services we deem important to ensure a stable and functional form of everyday living. These are things like a place to call home and electricity to power it. A means of transportation to interact with others in the community. Items of one kind or another to take care of the general health and safety of household members from the very young to the elderly.

A wisecracking animal once called the totality of such needs the bare necessities of life. What’s stated here is a more robust list than what he was advocating, but we humans do tend to be more complex in our requirements.

Beyond this though, everything we obtain, every product purchased or service enrolled in, is some incremental form of want more than need. How wants manifest in each person varies wildly across a host of axes from age and demographics to culture, class, and geography. Yet despite the chatter from outside voices, ultimately as long as it’s something you enjoy that doesn’t cause harm, there is no grand pecking order as to what is more “worthy” for you to spend your disposable income on. A box of knitting yarn isn’t intrinsically better or more savvy a purchase than a new pair of shoes, or a really nice meal, or a new video card. That, naturally, includes something like Magic cards.

Whatever your interest and passions may be, however, mere wants they remain. They are creature comforts of living, nothing more. That part is universal. But barring becoming a cultish devotee to the Elder God of consumerism, it is safe to say enjoy what you like, within the means you are able, and don’t worry about the naysayers. Even you, Beanie Baby diehards.

Over the years I’ve had to remind myself and others that Magic, like all gaming, is a luxury. It’s a leisure purchase through and through, and that I shouldn’t ever feel bad for not buying cards as voluminously or as quickly as the next person. Nor should you. Ever. That sentiment, whether tapping into basic ‘FOMO’ or to the psychological desire to collect something, is ever-present with Magic.

But it’s very much a feature, not a bug. Magic’s entire business model, indeed its very existence, revolves around making players crave buying more of it. Its needs, so to speak, are to ensure you continue to want to continue buying new cards. Set after set. Year after year. It must continually make new and sell new products, or it dies.

One of the many tools it uses to entice players is the idea of creating card cycles within sets. Card cycles are those which share a relationship with one another, such as having a common mechanic, creature type, or theme. These cycles can either be horizontal in nature (e.g. having 1 card for each color / pair / faction), or vertical (e.g. 1 card at each rarity). Cycles serve several purposes, including acting as a vehicle to convey a set’s theme, or providing a framework to aid in set development.

And, of course, to help sell packs.

I know this first-hand. When I started playing Magic, the first time I ever bought singles involved the original core set’s “lucky charm” artifacts: Crystal Rod, Iron Star, Ivory Cup, Throne of Bone, and Wooden Sphere. At the wise old age of 9, I had three of the five and really wanted a copy of the other two as to include all of them in my deck, so I had my older brothers pick them up at a store for me. I’ve been intrinsically understanding of their appeal for a long, long time.

There have been copious examples of popular card cycles over the last 28 years in the game – many of which I have great appreciation for even if I don’t necessarily use them. But among all of them, few card cycles generated the level of fervent adulation in my play groups as those of the Avatars and Lieges found in the Shadowmoor / Eventide block.

Naturally, therefore, we have one of those as this week’s card pick.

Today we have: Mindwrack Liege

Name: Mindwrack Liege

Edition: Eventide

Rarity: Rare

Focus: Creature Buffing / Alternate Casting

Highlights: While the Avatar mega cycle of the Shadowmoor block showcased a variety of abilities and effects, most of the Lieges were quite similar. The five Shadowmoor Lieges, for instance, all had the same mana value and a template of boosting its color pairs alongside either a standard creature mechanic or a trigger if something targeted the card directly. The Eventide five, such as Mindwrack Liege here, operated a little differently.

Although the Eventide Lieges contained the same color pair boosts, their mana values were ever so slightly higher and their combined quintet of abilities were more active rather than reactive in nature. Mindwrack’s ability is no exception. And it’s a pretty good one, particularly from a Commander perspective.

At its base, Mindwrack Liege is a 4/4 creature for six mana, which is respectable if not necessarily overwhelming. However, its pair of abilities more than make up for that slightly below curve frame. Firstly, it, like all the Lieges, provides two buffs to its respective colors. In this case, it gives all Red creatures and all Blue creatures a static +1/+1, which serves as a decent creature-based boost. This is handy in decks that are likely to use a mix of both colors in their creature arsenal. Moreover, because these are technically separate continuous effects, should a creature be both Red and Blue – as was the thrust of the block’s hybrid mana theme – it would get a sizable +2/+2, boosting even mediocre sized creatures into something to pay attention to. Given how often multicolor creatures are run in Commander, this is hardly something to overlook.

Second, and perhaps even more pointed, is its activated ability. For four hybrid mana, Mindwrack Liege acts as a de facto Quicksilver Amulet, letting you drop any Red or Blue creature from your hand directly onto the battlefield. Given the nature of the format and the ability to drop large creatures fairly cheaply, the implications of being able to simply dropship some of the most impactful creatures in your hand onto the battlefield at any time are both numerous and self-evident. It’s a powerful ability that can easily reshape the table state. Doubly so when you realize that doesn’t require tapping, which means that in later points of the game, there is the potential to put out more than one behemoth at a time. Behemoths that would also immediately be buffed to boot.

All of this innate synergistic potential does bring with it a pair of caveats. The primary concern is that because of what it’s capable of, it does make itself a bit of a target. Be mindful of the table conditions when you bring it out, because if you’re already the threat on the board or if someone is particularly jumpy, it could get picked off before you can really take advantage of its usefulness. The other, slightly lesser issue, is that due to its hybrid mana costs both for casting and activating, using it beyond a two color deck would require additional effort. That said, it is understandable why some may try – Mindwrack Liege’s boosts really can be quite useful on the battlefield even with a two color restriction.

And to think: in aggregate, Mindwrack Liege may have been the least used of the 5 Eventide Lieges.

No wonder why our group liked them so much.

Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.

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