Summary

  • Masters sets in Magic: The Gathering provide a platform for reprinting staple cards and allow for rarity downshifts, making key cards more affordable and expanding formats.
  • Judith, the Scourge Diva's shift to uncommon gives her new viability in Peasant formats, competing with Mayhem Devil and fitting into different deck strategies.
  • All That Glitters adds consistency to Pauper Ethereal Armor decks, allowing for new deck constructions and benefiting from the synergy between enchantments and artifacts.

Masters sets in Magic: The Gathering offer much more than repurposing old favorites into a new Limited format. They're a catalyst for reprinting staple cards, and they've recently become a playground for rarity downshifts. Designers like Gavin Verhey have been quite vocal that rarity changes are an expectation for and intentionally planted in Masters sets.

Related: Magic: The Gathering - Every Card In Commander Masters

Dropping a card's rarity usually results in drastic price drops and keeps key cards within players' budgets. Rarity also determines legality for Pauper, which only allows cards with a common printing. Likewise, "Peasant" environments only include commons and uncommons. Downshifts expand these formats and open up new decks, strategies, and sideboard options without having to print an entire new set of cards.

10 Judith, the Scourge Diva

Shifting Judith, the Scourge Diva to uncommon should give this once Standard-viable creature a well-deserved second wind in the form of a newfound Peasant viability. It competes with Mayhem Devil at this level, but Judith slots into low-to-the-ground aggressive decks as well as sacrifice-oriented ones.

Judith is a new contender for Peasant/Artisan EDH, a Commander variant that uses uncommon commanders, and Artisan Constructed, Magic Arena's take on a Peasant format. Judith's one of many new cards introduced in these niche but fun formats.

9 Cryptic Serpent

Tolarian Terror is the only thing holding Cryptic Serpent back from being the next Pauper all-star. The only point in Serpent's favor is literally a single point of power. However, consistency is king, and Cryptic Serpent may still have a home in the format as a runner-up.

Serpent can take the place of Gurmag Angler in the popular Blue-Black "turbo-Terror" decks, allowing it to operate as entirely monoblue. This cuts out the second color but keeps the core elements of the deck intact, creating a more consistent game plan that doesn't have to fiddle with taplands.

8 All That Glitters

All That Glitters adds four functional copies of Ethereal Armor to Pauper. Slippery Bogle and Gladecover Scout are already legal in the format, and there are several heroic creatures that benefit from auras as well. The Pauper version of this deck works similarly to its Modern or Pioneer counterparts, though with slightly less potent protection spells.

Related: Magic: The Gathering: Pauper Bogles Deck Guide

Ethereal Armor decks in Pauper aren't without their faults, but Glitters adds some consistency to the deck. These enchantments key off one another, and Glitters provides some new avenues for deck construction since it counts artifacts in play as well.

7 Dread Return

A long-time Modern banlist card, the power of Dread Return in Pauper is capped by the rarity of cards available in the format. Reanimating Troll of Khazad-dum or Generous Ent is less explosive than, say, Griselbrand or Archon of Finality. Still, the addition of this flashback spell bolsters Pauper's reanimator presence.

Exhume isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, Dread Return has the distinct advantage of being castable even if it's milled over. There's a real cost to flashing it back, but the advantage of being able to do so might warrant some deck-building tweaks to make it work.

6 Zilortha, Strength Incarnate

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate was originally printed as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in Ikoria's Godzilla IP crossover. The Magic equivalent only existed on Arena, leaving players wondering when they'd be able to acquire an in-universe version of the card on paper.

The mythic symbol on Godzilla is somewhat arbitrary, given the card was a box-topper promo, so it was smart to print Zilortha as a regular rare in Commander Masters. Players who missed out on the original promo or simply waited three years for the Magic-centric art were treated to an easily obtainable version.

5 Lotleth Giant

"Songs of the Damned" is a Pauper combo deck that revolves around cheap, generic cycling creatures and its titular card to generate large quantities of mana. Lotleth Giant could be the next big wincon for this strategy. Its undergrowth ability turns creatures in your graveyard into damage, which means it can one-shot players with the right set-up.

Related: Magic: The Gathering: What Is Cycling?

The giant might also find a home in reanimator decks full of self-mill effects. Dread Return and Mire Triton are among the other common rarity downshifts in CMM that fit the same style of decks where Lotleth Giant should excel.

4 Kirtar's Wrath & Extinguish All Hope

Printing Kirtar's Wrath and Extinguish All Hope at uncommon helps facilitate the Commander Masters Limited format, which is meant to emulate high-power games of Commander. In doing so, players were introduced to the only uncommon "unconditional" wraths in existence.

At six mana each, these cards are unlikely to make any format-warping meta changes, but the significance is more about what they represent for future Magic design than how these exact two cards perform. It sets a precedent for future wrath effects at uncommon, even if that philosophy's only applied to high-power Limited sets.

3 Skyline Despot

In a 1v1 setting, the monarch mechanic becomes a card advantage tool that's hard to keep up with. Palace Jailer is a mainstay of the MTGO Legacy Cube, and creatures like Thorn of the Black Rose see extensive Pauper play. Skyline Despot is the newest sub-rare monarch enabler to hit the scene.

Despot's high mana value might make it a more palatable way to introduce the mechanic to an uncommon-centric environment without uprooting or unbalancing it. Whether the monarch is a healthy addition to these environments in the first place is a different question altogether.

2 Wakening Sun's Avatar & Zacama, Primal Calamity

Wakening Sun's Avatar and Zacama, Primal Calamity are staple cards for Dinosaur typal decks in Commander, but they're niche enough that they're unlikely to see a significant reprint in a Standard set release. Masters sets are a perfect place to slot in archetype-specific cards like this, and the mythic-to-rare downshift should help temper the prices of these two cards.

Related: Magic: The Gathering: Best Cards For A Dinosaur Deck

These are timely reprints, given the proximity between the releases of Commander Masters and The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, a set that's bound to rekindle player interest in Dinosaur creatures.

1 Mangara, the Diplomat

Masters sets have traditionally been key players when it comes to dropping the prices of singles, especially for cards receiving rarity downshifts. Mangara, the Diplomat is one such example, a card that was never exorbitantly expensive but just out of range for budget players.

Prior to its inclusion in Commander Masters, copies of Mangara ran somewhere around $7-10, which is neither outrageous nor easily accessible for players on a stringent budget. The rarity downshift helps keep this generically good Commander card, and many others, within a reasonable price range.

Next: Magic: The Gathering: The Best Commons In Commander Masters