Due to the nature of any webpage on the internet having a title of some sort, you undoubtedly already are aware of the card we’re here to talk about. You can see it right above this line of text. Clear as day. It’s not a secret, exactly. That’s just kind of how things work. Sure, the grand reveal could be obfuscated, the precise card kept hidden from you until the moment the curtain is pulled back on whatever point is being made in the article that week. That’s a handy (albeit in this case quite short) breadcrumb approach to entice someone to actually open the article and stay invested until the crux of the piece is made. Of course, such an approach is also predicated on the assumption that the reader has a vested interest in the article in the first place. It’s a model that intrinsically assumes a buy-in with the reader has already been established. And while I’m nowhere near an SEO expert, I kind of assumed all those years ago that a generic title for a weekly post about one specific game, on a modest site, dedicated to a niche hobby, probably wasn’t the best approach.

So, yes, you’ve already deduced the card of renown for this week merely by clicking on the link. Yet while I’m sure there there are many of you who have already been nodding fervently in silent agreement, there’s also going to be more than a few perplexedly asking why it’s being brought up in a Commander Spotlight capacity.

The short answer: time.

Since this series was started Commander has gone from just one of many interesting and fun Magic formats to the dominant casual format of choice for a huge swath of players. This has given rise not only to entire supplemental products and sets aimed solely at the format but also a massive influx in players joining in on the festivities. This, naturally, includes a sizable percentage of more aggressive-style players looking to expand their strategic chops (or just going where the winds are blowing these days), bringing with them a much more tournament-minded ethos – something I personally find ironic given that EDH was originally created by players as a means of playing something outside the rigors of a tournament-focused environment. With such a monumental rise in scope and participation an entire subgenre of competitive EDH – often referred to as “cEDH” – has been born, where Commander decks are faster, meaner, more aggressive, less goofy, and generally more focused on winning than your average EDH deck.

Personally, I find cEDH to run against the entire spirit of what made EDH so endearing to so many in the first place, and although I won’t spend my time denigrating it at length, I will say that I don’t have a cEDH mindset, will never have one, and have no interest in advocating it. If that’s your game group’s preferred style have at it, but don’t expect to find any love for that approach here.

So. Then. Why this card?

Since this column’s inception I have doggedly stuck to a small handful of self-imposed rules regarding the selection and discussion of cards for this Commander-centric series. These have not changed:

1. The card must be from a regular (now called premier) expansion set. There are tremendous unique cards perfect for EDH that can be found in supplemental sets like Battlebond, Modern Horizons, or the annual Commander decks themselves, but access to those are not nearly as widespread in stores as a normal expansion and therefore can be harder to track down without the aid of online ordering.
2. The card generally will be more than 2 years old. Part of the appeal to EDH is finding and using cards that perhaps you forgot you own or bringing a fresh perspective to an older, more obscure card.
3. The card will be showcased individually. There have been many, many cards over the years that work decently enough on their own but naturally become even more worthwhile when included in certain card synergies or as part of certain card combos. However, part of the fun of Magic is discovering those broader connections for yourself.
4. The card should not cost more than around $5 to obtain. Commander is, and always should remain, a casual format capable of being enjoyed by any Magic player – including and especially by those who don’t have hundreds of dollars to throw around for custom decks.

I can’t stress enough the importance of these rules in my selections week to week, particularly the lattermost. There’s nothing wrong with using cards in Commander that can be powerful or even pricey (to a point), but at the end of the day it should be a format where a player with an out-of-the-box precon has a decent shot at the table against someone with a tricked-out custom deck. Otherwise you’re squarely back to the enduring and everlasting complaint that Magic is a Pay To Win game. The last thing we need is for that criticism to include a casual format as well. Therefore, we should have a space like this where we relish and highlight viable card options that are fun and enticing but won’t break the bank.

That’s the goal anyway.

One aspect to all this that is not lost on me, though, is that a couple of these conditions are pegged to that moment in time. There have been numerous instances over the years, for example, where a Spotlight card with relative obscurity was reprinted a year or two later in a Commander set, giving it new life and exposure to audiences. There have also been numerous instances over the years where a card chosen was cheap and inexpensive at the time only for it to have risen considerably since (see Corpse Dance, Debt of Loyalty, Empress Galina, Peacekeeper, Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep, Torpor Orb, and Waves of Aggression as some of the most egregious examples). While the former situation leaves me feeling a sense of accomplishment that someone at Wizards came up with the same desire to add the same card to an EDH deck as I, the latter can be disappointing that the voracious aftermarket will sometimes price enjoyable older cards out of reach for the average Commander player – including even some of the most benign cards on the Reserved List. But we’ll save the issue of price creep and rising card speculation for another day.

Sometimes, however, we get lucky with a card which I feel would be a great selection for EDH goes in the other direction and comes down in price enough to fit my criteria.

Such as – you guessed it – this week’s card.

Today we have: Knight of the Reliquary

Name: Knight of the Reliquary

Edition: Conflux / Knights v Dragons / Modern Masters / Iconic Masters / Time Spiral Remastered

Rarity: Rare

Focus: Land Fetch

Highlights: Two things are worth mentioning about Knight of the Reliquary right out of the gate. The first is that it’s a remarkable feat for the card to drop to within that desired $5 level without it having been part of a Commander set itself. Instead, thanks to four different reprintings its cost has come down considerably from its peak around the time of Battle for Zendikar. The second is that Knight of the Reliquary is not not not limited to decks based around Landfall or land/graveyard interactions.

Its usefulness in such decks is unquestionable, but it’s gained such a reputation over the years to that effect that many players tend to assume it’s not all that valuable outside of such decks. This is bolstered by the reality that the other reason it garnered its popularity and price is because of its efficacy in Legacy – a format not exactly known for sitting around waiting for most Landfall cards to function.

It’s a bit of an amusing convergence of purposes, but from from a Commander standpoint – a casual format nearly on the opposite end of the spectrum from Legacy – that its appeal is for almost exactly the same reasons. Which is that combos and synergy aside, it’s really good at mana fixing. In fact, thanks to its slower pacing, Knight of the Reliquary may be even better suited to EDH gameplay.

For just three mana you get a 2/2 creature, which in and of itself isn’t all that impressive. However, this Green / White knight also offers up a static ability that says it gets +1/+1 for each land in your graveyard. Although it can be moot at times, with the litany of lands in EDH with sacrifice abilities and the occasional bouts of land destruction in some metas, this bonus can also be incredibly handy as it’s entirely possible in the later stages of the game to be able to drop it out as a 5/5 or larger – which suddenly makes it a very cost effective card.

Tied into that is the Reliquary’s other attribute, which is its land filtering activated ability. This ability states that by tapping and sacrificing a Forest or a Plains, you can search your library for a land – any land – and put it onto the battlefield. This serves two equally useful purposes. First, although you’re only trading your lands on a 1:1 basis (meaning the total number doesn’t go up), this process allows you to upgrade a basic land on the battlefield into a much more useful nonbasic land from your deck – be it a useful utility land or simply to gain access to lands with more than one color mana. Depending on how mana intensive your deck is, this can be an invaluable asset.

Second, each time you activate your Knight you are ever-so-slightly thinning your deck, reducing your chances of getting lands on future draws. In EDH, this is highly advantageous in the latter half of games when you’re generally seeking anything but lands to aid you in your conquests.

It is the epitome of a win-win card, which is why it has been so vaunted for so long. And now that its price has come down to earth, it’s also an additional win for the casual community as well.

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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