Commander: Animar, Basandra and Ruhan

First off, I'd like to apologize for missing this morning's post. My brain just sort of shut off last night after I had written yesterday's post on The Mimeoplasm and Tariel. I'll see if I can post something extra this week to make up for it. On to Commander stuff!

Well, this is awkward. Only one preview card today, and it’s not even a legend! So, instead I’ll look at some of the other revealed legends. In fact, today let’s look at the first two legends on their visual spoiler: Animar, Soul of Elements and Basandra, Battle Seraph.




Animar, Soul of Elements

Well, this guy could fit in Muraganda just as well as the Mimeoplasm did. They have a similar +1/+1 counter theme going on, and it shares a creature casting cost reduction theme with Feeding Grounds. While certainly an easy fit, it does clarify what Muraganda is like a little more. A chaotic world with powerful creatures, it is probably a relatively young plane with little in the way of civilization.

Basandra, Battle Seraph

Another easy fit, she lives in the same world as Tariel. She is likely lower ranked than Tariel, as she isn’t as powerful and her effects aren’t quite as profound. She is more commonly found on the front lines of battle, preventing any magic from being used and stoking the rage of those around her. While her gameplay mechanic is obviously for goading an enemy creature into attacking, its flavor would allow her to keep her army in the fight as well.

Now we just need an enemy for her. Oh hey, I just found a card previewed today on starcitygames.com!

Ruhan of the Fomori

This guy is great. One of the champions of the fomori, the race that is at war with the angels, he is the ultimate berserker, lashing out at his enemies at random and attacking without thought. And with him, we have a definite link to a card that already exists: Fomori Nomad. Of course, this doesn’t give us much information on the world, but let’s extrapolate some information.

One: The Fomori are at war with the Angels.
Two: Basandra prevents sorcery.
Three: Tariel believes that the body and soul yearn to be separated.

So, that tells me that the Fomori make extensive use of magic. In some ways, they also prove Tariel wrong; they’re obviously difficult to kill, even more so if they use counter magic, though I doubt that they do. Let’s take a moment to figure out why he is the colors he is. The Red part is obvious, as he is a warrior that attacks at random. The White part isn’t hard to figure out either: White loves being fair, and the fact that he attacks a random opponent means he is (sort of) fair. The Blue part is tricky. I think that he has found a sort of enlightenment through his berserker tendencies, as implied by the blindfold he is wearing.

I’m not sure how to expand this to the culture as a whole, but I think it might be interesting if he was considered a sort of fomori sage.