Our third entry in the series of best new cards for commander coming out of Murders at Karlov Manor, let’s take a look at the entries in Blue. Blue loves card draw, combos, interaction, control. Blue cares about having multiple options and maintaining the upper hand while driving towards an inevitable victory by burying your opponents in card advantage. Does this set build upon these themes? Let’s dive in and look at the best blue cards in MKM!
Top Picks for Blue Commander Cards in MKM
Conspiracy Unraveler
We begin our journey with Conspiracy Unraveler, 6/6 flying Sphinx Detective for 7 that provides us a unique way to pay for our spells. Who doesn’t love cheating mana costs? Conspiracy Unraveler allows you to collect evidence 10 instead of paying for your spells. Pair this with a sell mill/surveil strategy for an explosive turn. You can create soft combos with cards like Breach the Multiverse and Repository Skaab. Cast Breach to mill yourself and each opponent 10 cards and elect to bring Repository Skaab into play. You can have the Skaab exploit itself, returning it to your graveyard to be Breached again. Use Skaab’s ETB to return Breach the Multiverse to your hand. Re-cast Breach via Collect Evidence from Conspiracy Unraveler, get Skaab back, exploit itself. Assuming you can collect the requisite evidence each time, you can rinse and repeat. You’ll have an army on your board and (hopefully) fully milled out your opponents. You’ll be fully milled too, so if someone has an instant speed way to make you draw a card, you may lose to your own combo. Best have some counterspells in hand!
Case of the Ransacked Lab
I do love cost reduction for instants and sorceries and this case gives you just that. This is the first enchantment that has this effect for only 3 mana, representing potential power creep in the format. Solving this case is somewhat of a challenge, since you need to cast 4 instants or sorceries on your turn. Once you do, each spell you cast nets you a card, allowing you to pull far ahead of your peers in your spellslinger/storm deck. Even if you never solve the case, a 3 mana cost reducer for instants and sorceries should be on your radar.
Reenact the Crime
Reenact the Crime works well with Surveil, Discard, self-mill, offensive mill, or any strategy that fills graveyards. You can exile and cast any nonland card that was put in any graveyard from anywhere this turn. It’s a bit restrictive considering the 3 blue pip requirement but quite potent nonetheless. It’s quite feasible to cheat in an Eldrazi or similar bomb for a far discounted price. You can even counterspell an opponent’s big play only to use it for yourself. Lots of possibilities to Reenact the Crime!
Final-Word Phantom
This crafty Spirit Detective allows you to cast spells on your opponent’s end steps as though they had flash – and he has flash too! This really plays into Blue’s love for playing around end steps. You’re not restricted in the spells you can cast. Final-Word Phantom allows you to play any other colors as though they had flash too!
Forensic Gadgeteer
Cost reduction is often stronger than your standard ramp and Forensic Gadgeteer does just that but specifically for artifact activated abilities. In a clue-themed set, this halves the cost of activating all of your clues. She creates clues for you every time you cast an artifact spell as well. This detective can net you strong card draw and will be a key piece in many decks that care about artifact activated abilities. Can we also appreciate the fact that we finally have a way to get infinite mana with Basalt Monolith?
Lost in the Maze
Lost in the Maze is a tricky card with a number of different uses. You can pay X as 0 simply to flash in and protect all of your tapped creatures. Flash it in and use it to tap your own creatures to give them hexproof. Use it offensively to tap down your opponents’ creatures and stun them. Lots of cards from the recent Wilds of Eldraine set care about tapping your opponents’ creatures, Hylda of the Icy Crown being a prime example. This card can go well in a proliferate-based deck too, keeping your opponents’ creatures tapped by increasing the stun counters on them. Time to find space for this in my Saint Traft and Rem Karolus deck!
Tangletrove Kelp
Highlighting a new finisher for your Clue based decks. Tangletrove Kelp animates all of your clues each combat into 6/6 Plant creatures, allowing you to swing out or defend yourself. They become non-creatures again at end of turn, meaning you’re safe from sorcery speed creature board wipes during your opponent’s first main phases. Since it’s limited to Clues, the Kelp isn’t as generically strong as other artifact-animation finishers like Cyberdrive Awakener or Rise and Shine. You do get your creatures every turn though, a strong upside in comparison. Appropriately, this card comes in the Deep Clue Sea precon.
Honorable Mentions
Coveted Falcon
There’s a lot of room for goofy gameplay for Coveted Falcon. This sneaky bird allows you to donate permanents for card draw and allows you to steal them back on attack. You could look at a lot of Zedruu the Greathearted’s tricks to see what kind of nasty permanents you can donate. Cards like Illusions of Grandeur and Nine Lives come to mind. You get all the upside, let your opponents deal with the downside! Or allow them to temporarily borrow your stuff and have the falcon bring it back to you. You could donate all of your creatures and bring them immediately back with Homeward Path for a quick burst of card draw as well.
Case of the Shifting Visage
More surveil synergy in this set. While 3 mana to surveil once per turn isn’t necessarily amazing, solving this case can be trivial in the right decks. Once solved, each of your nonlegendary creature spells get copied, helping you overwhelm the board with big beaters or value creatures.
Proft’s Eidetic Memory
This card has a lot of potential – it has a high floor, two mana to draw a card and remove your maximum hand size. The upside to Proft’s Eidetic Memory is extra combat damage based on the cards you’ve drawn on your turn. For Commander, this card is likely to be used in decks that are not strictly mono blue, since blue typically draws cards on its opponents’ end steps in order to hold mana for interaction. Sorcery-speed card draw, clue draw, upkeep/enchantment draw – all those would pair well with this card. Sure, your opponents will see your buff creature coming – but this card only cost you two mana 3 turns ago and replaced itself, you know? Pair this with green burst draw like Rishkar’s Expertise to get ludicrously large creatures for your amusement.
Intrude on the Mind
This another take on the card-draw minigame style of cards like Fact or Fiction. You get to separate the top 5 cards of your library into 2 piles. Then pick an opponent to give you one pile and you discard the second pile. You get a 0/0 Thopter artifact with +1/+1 counters equal to the cards in the second (discarded) pile. Pair this with your Doubling Season +1/+1 counter synergy deck to make your opponent’s decision that much more interesting.
Decent Value Cards for MKM Mechanics
Shoutout to Detective of the Month, Steamcore Scholar, Deduce and Eliminate the Impossible for being good cards that support the mechanics highlighted in this set. Detective of the month can recruit you more detectives every time you draw your second card each turn, which you can do by cracking two clues on your opponents turns. Steamcore Scholar lets you discard cards for relatively cheap. Deduce lets you draw a card and create a clue and Eliminate the Impossible is a combat trick that nets you a clue as well. One of the surprisingly few cards in the set that cares about creatures being suspected.