Cardsphere Picks: Battle for Baldur's Gate

Matt Bodensteiner • June 18, 2022

After a brief hiatus, the Cardsphere Picks series is back to talk about some of our favorites from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate just in time for... well, Double Masters 2022, I guess? At any rate, Battle for Baldur's Gate looks to offer a myriad of new cards to help you venture deep into the Undercity.

When we make our picks, we ask people to use any criteria that they see fit. It could be a powerful new format staple, a beautiful piece of artwork, a clever little bit of flavor text with a deep cut reference... the choice is yours!

For Battle for Baldur's Gate, Discord Tunnel Snakes Bodey and Josh are here to shake things up a bit from our usual admin crew and are joined by longtime Cardsphere community member Neodarkside.

Bodey

Inspired Tinkering
Impulse draw three cards and make three mana on a red sorcery sounds vaguely familiar... though having an entire turn cycle to play the cards and the mana sticking around is a nice tradeoff for costing two more mana than a certain Jeska's Will

. Should be a great budget alternative or second copy of the effect.

Prized Statue
I play a lot of Ichor Wellspring

in Commander. I am looking forward to playing this card a lot in those same decks. It's the innocuous little artifacts that are often the oil that keeps the engine running smoothly.

Deep Gnome Terramancer
There are quite a few solid white cards to talk about in this set, so Deep Gnome Terramancer

is really representing a lot more than just itself with this pick. I like the spot that white is carving out in the commander pie by "taxing" your opponents for executing their game plans. Terramancer highlights this by allowing you to keep pace with your opponents for playing those fetch lands and ramp spells. Having flash is the icing on the cake to all but guarantee it cashes in for at least one Plains.

Josh

I mostly build decks for my Pauper Battle Box, and there are a few rather unique cards which piqued my interest. This set adds support for green self-mill strategies, and I'm excited to test a few certain cards for my Dragon Delve deck.

This deck attempts to quickly fill the graveyard with Dragon Fangs

, Dragon Breath
, and Dragon Scales
, then play a Gurmag Angler
 or First-Sphere Gargantua
, bringing those Dragon enchantments into play attached to them. This is a fun deck when it hits, however sometimes it gets stuck rummaging through the library with nothing to show for it. I'm hopeful a few creature cards from Baldur's Gate will replace certain spells in the deck, helping improve consistency and providing a little more presence on the board.

Circle of the Land Druid
Circle of the Land Druid is a near replica of Satyr Wayfinder

in this deck, and I'd likely replace Ram Through
 or Faithless Looting
 with this card. Being a three-color deck is tough in Pauper, and removing red from the playable spells will decrease the chances of a "Turn 2, Pass".

Druidic Ritual
Druidic Ritual is better than Grapple with the Past

, though it costs one more mana. Only one way to find out which is better!

Atrocious Experiment
Lastly, Atrocious Experiment

can help this deck rummage through cards while building up the graveyard, and I'd likely replace Ancestral Mask
 with this spell. It seems that when I do get a creature or two in play with some Dragon enchantments attached, I'm likely to win, so Ancestral Mask
 just helps me win more.

Neodarkside

So for my Commander Legends 2 picks I'm going to have to go with characters from the actual Baldur's Gate series. Neera, Wild Mage

, Jaheira, Friend of the Forest
, and Bhaal, Lord of Murder
.

Neera, Wild Mage
Neera, Wild Mage fits the idea of wild magic in the actual game (Baldur's Gate) where spells could randomly misfire and cause random effects. So translating that to MTG where your Brainstorm

could instead summon Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
, I'm all for that.

Jaheira, Friend of the Forest
Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is a fun card for token decks, plus it doesn't matter if the token is a creature or token copy of something else. Especially combined with a Gold Token

which doesn't require to tap; tap it for a green mana and then sac for any color.

Bhaal, Lord of Murder
Another character that fits the idea from the actual game, to a degree. He is the basis from the entire series for the first two games. Long story short, Bhaal knew about his impending demise so he figured out a way to return to life, sire a generation of children who will ultimately kill each other to claim their power, and when the last one dies, he will be reborn. That translates a little bit to his actual card, a creature dies and he imbues them with power and forces them to fight another.