After last week’s deep dive into the rate of legendary creature releases, this week we’re pulling back a bit and keeping things simple. As in so simple one can argue whether it has any real purpose being considered for Commander at all anymore.

Or at least that’s how some corners of the format act nowadays.

When Commander née EDH first came into the larger Magic consciousness, and even during its initial nascent roughly a decade ago, there were certain truths about the game. It was intended to be casual-minded. It was intended to be a slower format – a diametrically opposite format to the high stakes tournament scene. And it was intended to be something anyone could join in on if they had enough cards to make a 100 card singleton deck. Since its inception, Commander has undoubtedly, unquestionably been a format for people who wanted to be able to play flashy high CMC cards they’d never been able to play much elsewhere, cards they’ve had sitting around from the past, and wonky table-warping cards that only find appeal in multiplayer settings. Games that take hours. Games where there are expected shifts in the balance of power. Where table politics are a given. Commander, in other words, has always been ‘battlecruiser’ Magic. To use Wizards’ own psychographic groups, Commander is the quintessential ‘Timmy’ format. It is all about the experience.

Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to be treated.

Yet as its popularity has grown there’s been a growing pervasiveness to how long that philosophy can hold. Part of this ideological muddying has happened organically; as more people partake in the format you were bound to bring in more ‘Johnnys’ and ‘Spikes’ who treat Magic as more of something to be solved – whether through intricate combos or through bare-knuckle brawling. Spike players particularly are more focused on winning more than experiencing – it’s what makes them good at competitive play. But in time the increased proliferation and overall increase of these latter groups in the format has led to a notable increase in players who want (or rather need) to play more maximized, aggressive, competitive decks. So much so that we now even have the ‘cEDH’ designation – an unofficial subset of Commander for players to sling high-end competitive decks that operate on a higher tier. As if the standard EDH fare were beneath them. In effect, rather than enjoy the format for what it offered, they brought the style of gameplay they enjoy most into the format.

Part of this has also happened artificially through Wizards themselves. Since officially being sanctioned as a format to pay attention to, Wizards has spent ample time and money developing Commander-specific cards and product to sell. In aggregate, however, many of the designs themselves (and the pace at which they’re been pushed out) has had a twofold effect. First, the volume of enticing multiplayer and Commander-specific cards has saturated the format, such that it’s now much more likely to see these newer cards than older cards or those you had lying around. Some of this is sheer accessibility, as it’s easier for many players to buy new product rather than singles. Some of it, though, is simple power creep: many of these new Commander-specific cards are strictly better than that similar-but-slightly-less-potent card from Onslaught, or Alliances, or the first Ravnica. Why play with the older cards you may have when you can buy newer stuff that’s accessible and more powerful? (The key word there being ‘buy’.)

Second, because Wizards is a business and they want to capitalize on as much of their player base as possible, they’re naturally going to create cards that encourage all three gameplay styles, not just the Timmys of the world. They have pushed design boundaries in recent years with cards that definitely cater to more aggressive, faster style gameplay (if even slightly) to entice those other player groups further into Commander. And it’s worked. Commander of 2022 is – on the whole – faster than Commander of 2012.

Taken into totality, there are entire swaths of the Commander-playing populace nowadays who feel that decks should be built optimally, if not maximally. Which means a focus on cards that pack the biggest punch and/or are complex enough to warrant the 99. The format has certainly gotten flashier, but it’s also gotten more divisive. So much so that in some corners you hear commentary that makes you wonder whether older cards still matter. Whether simpler cards with simpler payoffs still matter. Whether all but the most broken commons can even be present without some kind of unasked commentary.

The answer, lest anyone tell you otherwise, is yes. They absolutely do still matter. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

In fact, one of my favorite multiplayer cards of all time is simple, older, not janky, and a common.

Today we have: Recoil

Name: Recoil

Edition: Invasion / Ajani vs Bolas

Rarity: Common

Focus: Permanent Bounce / Discard

Highlights: As the Invasion block went, particularly as you moved into Planeshift and Apocalypse, both the importance and necessity of different colors was rather high – but not always (at least at the time) in color combinations that you were familiar seeing. Yet there also were sprinkled among that block a number of pretty straightforward multicolor cards in pairings that we’ve been long familiar with. Recoil is certainly among the matter. Not only is it one of the most straightforward multicolor cards from that block, it’s also one of the most straightforward multicolor cards out there.

It’s also incredibly effective. Like, dangerously so.

As a common.

From a personal perspective, Recoil is one of my all-time favorite cards. It’s certainly among my top 5 favorite Black / Blue cards, and if I were to have a hypothetical Top Something list, there’s little doubt Recoil would be on it. It’s not an especially explosive card compared to the myriad choices available to casual multiplayer Magic, but between its effects, its cost, and its synergy, it’s easily one of the most clutch cards going in my estimation. Which ironically says a lot given that its entire effect is all of two sentences.

The fast majority of the time, Recoil can rightfully be seen as a Black / Blue Regress or Boomerang. This makes it part of the last batch of Blue bounce cards that would still let you target lands as an option before they took that effect away, and while it’s not incredibly likely that you would use this to bounce a land – especially in a Commander setting – it is nevertheless an option should you want or need it. Indeed, unless you find it most advantageous to use it to inflict injury on an opponent at a most inopportune time (say by bouncing their key blocker), more than likely you’re going to want to save using it until it becomes a necessity. Thanks to its open-ended targeting, this could mean returning a dangerous creature attacking you, a planeswalker about to pop an annoying emblem, or some piece of a player’s combo engine. In all cases, Recoil tosses that card back to the player’s hand.

Moreover, it should be noted that while EDH is chock full of options for major table disruption, including mass bounce effects of one kind or another, there’s still ample space in gameplay strategy for selective targeting such as Recoil in a deck. Sometimes it’s more politically advantageous to not upset the entire table to address one specific problem on the battlefield. Plus, very few mass bounce cards can be cast at instant speed (for good reason), whereas Recoil can be cast pretty much whenever you need it. Contrary to the beliefs of some, such selective targeting cards are far from pointless in the format.

Now, normally doing so is just a matter of buying time, delaying your opponent from simply casting the card again on their next turn. If the card is expensive to cast, you may even essentially buy yourself a couple turns since they may not have the resources to re-cast the affected card and whatever card would come next. What makes Recoil particularly delicious in this regard is its secondary effect: forcing that opponent to also discard a card.

If used early in the game, forcing a player to discard a single card is pretty trivial, if mildly annoying. In the latter half of an EDH game, however, that choice could become much more painful. If your opponent only has a couple cards in their hand, they’ll now have to decide whether they want to keep the returned permanent and discard something else potentially useful or opt to keep what’s in their hand and discard the bounced card itself. In the latter case, Recoil becomes not just a bounce card but an outright spot removal card instead. If your opponent is unfortunately empty handed, this is all but guaranteed. Timed right, and Recoil can be surprisingly ruinous to a player’s immediate – and potentially future – plans.

Although Recoil certainly has all the outward looks of a stapled together card, there’s actually some painful synergy involved if the person on the other end has a small (or no) hand of cards. And it’s gotten me out of many, many jams over the years. It’s deceptively potent, great at key moments, and is still remarkably easy to obtain despite only having two printings . Yay commons!

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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