Murders at Karlov Manorbrings a classic murder mystery toMagic: The Gathering. People are dying under mysterious circumstances all over Ravinca, and its up to you to solve the case. You could carefully collect evidence, investigate clues, and build your case against key suspects, or you can do what the Blame Game Commander Deck does and accuse everyone at once.
Unfortunately, the Boros colors of red and white have never been one for subtlety. There are plenty of potent cards found in Blame Game’s decklist, but these ten prove just how unsubtle Boros can be in pursuit of justice.
10Hot Pursuit
Don’t Let ‘em Get Away!
Hot Pursuit showcases the Boros way of policing: if they run, they’ve got to be guilty. By suspecting an opposing creature, you give it both menace and the inability to block, but goading it ensures this sneaky suspect is going to be attacking your enemies first before it attacks you.
The rest of Blame Game is full of cards that goad and suspect creatures, and when two players exit the game, Hot Pursuit gives you control of every one of those creatures for a surprise sting operation. A fantastic card for multiplayer commander games.
9Immortal Obligation
You Work For Me Now.
The next best thing to stealing an opponent’s creature from their graveyard is to reanimate that creature under your opponent’s control but force it to attack everyone except you. On top of that, said reanimated creature can’t block any of your creatures, making it sort of like having someone on the inside.
What’s great about Immortal Obligation is how it confuses the natural politics of a multiplayer commander game. Should the table’s ire be focused on the person who forced this creature to attack every turn? Or should it be focused on the person who chose whom they’re obliged to attack? Blame Game is great at redirecting blame at anyone but itself.
8Mob Verdict
It’s Usually Guilty.
Spells that cause the table to come together to hold a secret vote are always a lot of fun. You get a glimpse at the table’s priorities as they choose whether to damage themselves and their peers, or give you cards. Either way it goes down, Mob Verdict will put Blame Game ahead.
In practice, this will more likely than not result in a few cards and a bit of damage, but not enough to kill the big bads at the table. Still, the likelihood of Mob Verdict resulting in a significant card advantage is high enough that you should consider running it in other red commander decks.
7Feather, Radiant Arbiter
Magic’s Slightly More Biblically Accurate Angel.
Feather doesn’t really fit in the deck she’s available in, but she’s still an excellent creature. Three mana for a 4/3 flying lifelink that can double the number of spells that target her. What’s notable is that creatures that can target her can also be copied and arrive on the table as tokens. This can net you a lot of long-term value as you start doubling creatures at a discount.
Feather really wants to be in her own dedicated deck full of buffing creatures and fun combat tricks. Take her out of Blame Game and build around her.
6Redemption Arc
It’s Time To Turn Your Life Around.
Redemption Arc offers significant flexibility. You could play it on your enemy’s creature to make it this invincible colossus constantly taking bites out of your opponents. When they all die and there’s no one left for that creature to attack but you, simply pay two mana to exile it.
Or you can cast it on your creature later in the game to make it indestructible. Yes, it would have to attack every turn, but you’re probably okay with that after a few opposing players have died off. A great enchantment overall.
5Havoc Eater
Let Chaos Take The World.
Havoc Eater has the potential to be an enormous creature. Plenty of games have come down to a standoff where nobody is willing to risk their big creature in combat. With Havoc Eater, you force your opponents to attack, and you wind up with a huge flying Elemental for your trouble.
What makes Havoc Eater so special is that most stalemates are broken with a board clear. Havoc Eater instead just forces bad decisions on your opponents while improving your board state. There’s a certain elegance to breaking stalemates with a bomb.
4Prisoner’s Dilemma
Snitches Get Stitches.
They’ve finally gone and done it. Wizards of the Coast has created a card that replicates the prisoner’s dilemma. If you didn’t know, the prisoner’s dilemma is the simplest depiction of game theory in economics. Essentially, if everyone plays it cool, the group benefits, but if one person betrays the rest, only the betrayer benefits and everyone else suffers the consequences.
Magic’s Prisoner’s Dilemma is the same thing, but it’s all downside. At least everyone is taking four damage, but they could be taking eight or even 12 damage depending on the number of snitches. At particularly back-stabby tables, this card could do a ton of damage. And it has flashback, so you can do it twice.
This card is probably better suited for an Izzet instant and sorcery deck, but it’s still a ton of fun to play on its own.
3Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser
Get Your Facts Straight, Lady.
Here we have the Wojek detective who isn’t particularly great at her job. Nelly likes to accuse everyone just to see what happens. Sure, it’s a destructive process watching all those suspects beat each other to death, but whoever is left after all is said and done has to be the culprit. Right?
Nelly is a fascinating commander. So long as she keeps attacking, she keeps accusing suspects and goading them to attack, causing constant degradation to opposing boards and life totals. On top of that, she’ll keep drawing cards. The only trick is keeping Nelly alive long enough to make a lot of suspects.
2Take the Bait
Just Couldn’t Resist, Could Ya?
Take the Bait offers so much for four mana. First, you prevent all combat damage to yourself and your planeswalkers, so you could just allow your enemy’s army through to no effect. Or you could decide to gang-block a few of those creatures to cut down your enemy’s army.
Either way, afterward, that army has to go home and attack someone else. Take the Bait can potentially save your game while ending someone else’s. Maybe there’s some subtlety to Boros after all.
1Trouble in Pairs
It Never Comes Just Once.
There’s a card called Rhystic Study that essentially guarantees a blue mage will draw a ton of cards. Trouble in Pairs isn’t quite a white Rhystic Study, but it’s very close. There’s a great likelihood that your opponents will attack you with more than one creature, draw more than one card in a turn, or cast more than one spell. Each time that happens, you draw a card.
On top of that, any time your opponents would get an extra turn, Trouble in Pairs makes them skip it. This shuts down a few of commander’s more annoying combos and hoses the random blue mage who was likely going to cast Time Warp eventually. They all do that.
