Impact Resonance is a card exclusive to the Commander 2014: Built from Scratch deck that was released in November of 2014. That deck  is full of some other very powerful cards such as Daretti, Scrap Savant, Dualcaster Mage, and others. So, it's easy to overlook a card like this that could potentially change the tide of a game out of nowhere.

For 1R (1 red mana, 1 colorless mana), Impact Resonance is an Instant spell that allows you to deal X damage to any number of target creatures. In this case, X is the greatest amount of damage dealt by a source to a permanent or player this turn. In a multiplayer format like Commander where plenty of damage is being dealt all the time, playing a card like this to take out any number of problem creatures can be highly useful. The damage doesn't have to even be caused by you in the first place. With this card, you could have really powerful mass removal in your hands.

So if this card can be so destructive at such a low mana cost, why does no one play it? Truthfully, there are many cards like this that in theory are quite good. But in the current Commander meta, Impact Resonance is a bit too situational to be given a deck slot where it would be used consistently. It's a well-designed card, but while it's a really sweet trick, it just isn't going to impact games often enough to be worth it. It's more of a cheap trick, although it can make for some major game changes. This obviously is why it was designed in the first place.

The only popular Commander who would seem to want this sort of effect is Heartless Hidetsugu, who is notorious for his extremely damaging ability. His ability deals damage to half of each player's life total (rounded down). This card would be a nice way to clear the board of creatures that may pose a problem to the Heartless Hidetsugu player. It's not an auto-include, but in playgroups that like creature-heavy decks, I can see it being a useful "tech" card.

What do you think of Impact Resonance?

Pauper Commander, also known as PDH, is a variant of the extremely popular Commander (EDH) format. Like Commander, you choose a creature to be your Commander, then play 99 cards that share a color with that creature (including the colors of casting costs required to use its abilities.) Except instead of using a Legendary Creature, you instead use an uncommon (or even common) creature as your Commander. The rest of your deck must be commons, or have been printed at common at one time or another. (For example, Doom Blade was printed at uncommon in one expansion, but has been printed at common before, so it is legal.)

Today, we look at one of the most powerful Pauper Commanders, a powerful Legacy-playable card called Baleful Strix.

Baleful Strix is a very strong creature first printed in the Planechase 2012 deck: Night of the Ninja. It was most recently re-printed in the Commander 2013 deck, Mind Seize. It’s a 1/1 flyer with deathtouch for one Black and one Blue (BU) and draws you a card when it enters. It also happens to be an artifact, which is quite relevant in the two formats that it’s mostly played in, Legacy and Commander.

As a Pauper Commander, Baleful Strix is repeatable card advantage on a stick. The deck that is typically built around it usually cares about tempo, playing many of permission spells, counterspells that still allow players to cast their spells for a cost. There is also a suite of black removal and discard cards. Here’s a fantastic list from Vitriol on Tappedout.net.

Creature (22)

    1x Archaeomancer
    1x Basilica Screecher
    1x Cavern Harpy
    1x Chittering Rats
    1x Crypt Rats
    1x Dimir House Guard
    1x Drift of Phantasms
    1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
    1x Man-o'-War
    1x Mnemonic Wall
    1x Mulldrifter
    1x Nightscape Familiar
    1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
    1x Ravenous Rats
    1x Scrivener
    1x Sea Gate Oracle
    1x Spire Golem
    1x Stinkweed Imp
    1x Stormscape Familiar
    1x Trinket Mage
    1x Twisted Abomination
    1x Ulamog's Crusher

Artifact (7)

    1x Aether Spellbomb
    1x Bonesplitter
    1x Dimir Signet
    1x Executioner's Capsule
    1x Flayer Husk
    1x Nihil Spellbomb
    1x Viridian Longbow

Enchantment (2)

    1x Pestilence
    1x Tortured Existence

Instant (22)

    1x Agony Warp
    1x Capsize
    1x Condescend
    1x Counterspell
    1x Deprive
    1x Diabolic Edict
    1x Echoing Truth
    1x Exclude
    1x Ghostly Flicker
    1x Grim Harvest
    1x Gush
    1x Impulse
    1x Last Gasp
    1x Memory Lapse
    1x Miscalculation
    1x Muddle the Mixture
    1x Mystical Teachings
    1x Peel from Reality
    1x Recoil
    1x Repeal
    1x Soul Manipulation
    1x Think Twice

Sorcery (9)

    1x Compulsive Research
    1x Deep Analysis
    1x Disturbed Burial
    1x Evincar's Justice
    1x Hymn to Tourach
    1x Merchant Scroll
    1x Ponder
    1x Preordain
    1x Treasure Cruise

Land (37)

    1x Barren Moor
    1x Bojuka Bog
    1x Command Tower
    1x Dimir Aqueduct
    1x Dimir Guildgate
    1x Dismal Backwater
    1x Evolving Wilds
    1x Halimar Depths
    1x Haunted Fengraf
    13x Island
    1x Lonely Sandbar
    1x Polluted Mire
    1x Remote Isle
    1x Seat of the Synod
    9x Swamp
    1x Terramorphic Expanse
    1x Vault of Whispers

This particular list plays many “value” creatures that provide some sort of card advantage, either by netting you a card, retrieving a card from your graveyard, or forcing your opponent to discard. You could choose to play more instants and sorceries over creatures, but this list is quite balanced and allows for a wide range of plays.

Blue and Black are powerhouse colors in regular Pauper (which is a Legacy format) because of the power level of many of their commons. So it’s not really a surprise to see a Blue/Black deck that has a Commander which provides a free card along with it be potentially one of the top decks in the Pauper Commander format. Also, with each passing set, there are more cards that become eligible to be played in this deck, meaning more options to tweak your list.

How would you build a Pauper Commander deck led by Baleful Strix?

Orzhov Guildmage hails from the set of  Guildpact. He also saw a reprint in the original Commander pre-constructed product in 2011. He has two interesting abilities. The first for 2W has target player gain 1 life. The second ability has each player lose 1 life. There are cases where this ability could prove rather relevant, especially in Commander where you have a lot of mana floating around, and plenty of ways to abuse life gain and life loss effects. However, from a Constructed standpoint, Orzhov Guildmage doesn’t do a whole lot.

Vizkopa Guildmage, from Gatecrash, on the other hand, is a part of some particularly nasty infinite combos, one of which is with an Enchantment from Avacyn Restored called  Exquisite Blood. Vizkopa Guildmage has two abilities, both which cost 1WB (1 colorless, 1 White, 1 Black). The first gives a target creature lifelink until end of turn, which seems nice enough. But the second ability says “Whenever you gain life this turn, each opponent loses that much life.”

That Enchantment, Exquisite Blood, costs 4B, and reads “Whenever an opponent loses life, you gain that much life.” Since Vizkopa Guildmage’s second ability and Exquisite Blood’s ability work in tandem, as soon as you deal 1 damage or gain 1 life, it creates an infinite loop which runs until every opponent is at zero life and you win the game.

Augury Adept is similarly both white and blue and could benefit from this card, as well. Going unblocked, the Adept could essentially draw me a free card every turn while potentially also gain me life.

With these three cards in my draft deck, I probably should have won more games than I lost. Alas, I drafted very poorly otherwise – as I had never drafted Magic before – and didn’t win too much.

I also didn’t have access to another Enchantment from Lorwyn called Battle Mastery.

That is some beautiful card. To be fair, the best card he did artwork on was Tower of the Magistrate  (I personally love his artwork on  Seht’s Tiger  from Future Sight!)

Game of Chaos  is yet another one of those cards from a very early time in Magic where crazy things could and did happen that made no logical competitive sense. I absolutely love reviewing these and enjoying some classic old-school, old-bordered Magic cards!

Essence of the Wild is a very fun mythic rare. When it was first released, I saw it as a card with plenty of potential. Considering that this card automatically makes every creature that hits the board under your control into a 6/6 Essence of the Wild Avatar, there are plenty of ways you can abuse it.

One option that was popular when Essence of the Wild was in Standard was to use it as a 6-drop in Birthing Pod decks. It makes all of your little utility creatures into big beaters, and short of a board-wipe it could be game over. To be honest, this wasn’t a popular strategy, but there are those that did it.

The better option that I had once considered was to play Essence of the Wild in a token based deck, like with Hero of Bladehold and any other cards that create lots of tokens. It would’ve been especially fun with Garruk, Primal Hunter  and Garruk Relentless, whose tokens now become 6/6. Needless to say, having 6/6 beaters is pretty fun.

The main issue is this Essence of the Wild’s 6-drop cost, with a triple Green requirement. In Standard, this heavy leaning towards Green proved to be a bit awkward. In any case, Essence of the Wild is especially fun in Commander, with all of the token creation available in the format. This was never the mythic rare you wanted to pull out of Innistrad (why couldn’t you be a Liliana of the Veil!?) but it’s still a good card to try and include in a fun Commander strategy.

I’d still love to see a Modern ramp deck run Essence of the Wild. Now that would be fascinating. I'm not sure it would ever happen, but this is a powerful mythic rare on paper.