Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks Revealed

Here are the four new upcoming Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander Decks that players can get their hands on when the set gets released on April 19, 2024:

Desert Bloom Yuma, Proud Protector Land Discard, Graveyard Recursion

Quick Draw Stella Lee, Wild Card Spellslinger

Most Wanted Olivia, Opulent Outlaw Go Wide, Treasures

Grand Larceny Gonti, Canny Acquisitor Spell Steal

What does each deck do? Here’s a rundown of what to look forward to each deck:

Desert Bloom – Yuma, Proud Protector

Yuma, Proud Protector is a heavy, eight-to-cast commander that requires a lot of ramping and land dropping to bring him out. At 6/6, he has a decent body, but his most important trait is making spells cheap to cast as long as there are land cards in the player’s graveyard. The deck will likely have a lot of graveyard recursion and cycling lands in its deck, as these two mechanics will make it easier for players to bring Yuma out. Also, expect a lot of ramping in this deck from its green cards.

Yuma’s second ability can sacrifice lands in return for a card draw. At first look, this doesn’t seem to generate any card advantage, as losing land is very risky in any Commander deck, especially if said Commander already costs 8 mana in the first place. Imagine losing land and then your Commander dying by the end of turn, making him harder to cast the second time around.

He mitigates this risk somewhat by creating a 4/2 green Plant Warrior whenever a Desert card is put into the graveyard. However, there should be serious ways to get lands back to the battlefield in this deck for it to work. Crucible of Worlds, anyone? Otherwise, it’s just one Bojuka Bog away from losing.

Quick Draw – Stella Lee, Wild Card

Izzet decks are almost always guaranteed to feature a spellslinger Commander, and that’s definitely the case with Stella Lee, Wild Card. There’s some serious potential with this card with a very high ceiling when played correctly. Coming into the field for only three mana can leave enough spells to protect her for an entire turn, especially since this card will immediately draw the ire of the entire table.

Stella shines in being able to create card advantage even when you run out of spells in hand, thanks to her ability to dig into the top card of your deck after casting your second spell each turn. If you get to cast an instant or sorcery from the spell you exile on top of your library, you can then trigger her second ability, allowing you to copy that spell, or the second spell that should still be on the stack at this point.

At its floor, you can play a land from your top deck or play a creature that can tide over until your next turn, when you can attempt another run to go infinite. Speaking of going infinite and loops, there are a lot of cards that can enter an infinite loop with her second ability – it all just boils down to timing. Any instant or sorcery that will cause her to untap will immediately cause an infinite loop – add something from Strixhaven that has Magecraft, and you instantly win the game.

Most Wanted – Olivia, Opulent Outlaw

Most Wanted appears to embody the most basic Mardu ideology: punch your opponents in the face. The most recent Mardu Commander before her, Caesar, Legion’s Emperor, is considered to be the best of its batch, but Olivia doesn’t on her own seem to be as impactful.

Her ability to produce Treasure tokens when her outlaws hit the face of opponents may sound strong, but getting to hit opponents on a Commander table isn’t as simple as you think. Having to spend three mana on top of sacrificing two treasures just to be able to put two +1/+1 counters to creatures you control is a steep price to pay.

You can fantasize about building up your board filled with outlaws all you want, but even getting to two treasures solely with Olivia’s abilities is already a tough ask. The only time that sacrificing your treasures and paying 3 mana to put two +1/+1 counters on your creatures will be worth it is when you’re way ahead that you could probably win without those counters, anyway.

Grand Larceny – Gonti, Canny Acquisitor

Finally, we are talking about the Sultai deck. It’s an interesting one since stealing an opponent’s spells isn’t exactly played a lot in today’s meta. However, Gonti might just be the person for the job, making stolen spells cheaper to cast, and allowing him to steal more cards off the top of opponent’s libraries even when he himself doesn’t attack.

Stealing an opponent’s spell can leave some people very salty, though, so hopefully there are plenty of ways to protect Gonti in this Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander deck. It will also make you an archenemy really fast, so you have to quickly defeat your opponents the moment you land your first hit.

Sadly, this deck doesn’t feature the red color, which has a lot of steal effects. There is a lot of support for this Commander in the Dimir colors, however, so it’s not like players will be losing out too much from having access to one less color.

Outlaw of Thunder Junction Releases on April 19

And that’s all of the revealed Commander Decks so far, although the full deck lists will not be out yet until later this week. Which one of these cards are you looking forward to adding to your deck, or even better, running as your commander? Will you be getting any of these Commander pre-cons?

Whatever’s the case, these cards will become available on April 19, 2024, while pre-release weekend happens the week before for those heading to their local game stores.