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Through Magic: The Gathering’s Double Masters 2022 preview season, there has been a recurring meme from the community that it has been very Commander-centric. We’ve seen a huge number of reprints that are most relevant to the Commander format, and even includes former precon commanders we’ve never seen in booster packs before. This is especially noteworthy as we’ve just come off of a Commander Legends set that many criticised for being relatively low-power.

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Day five of Double Masters 2022’s previews doesn’t do anything to address those jokes. In fact, it almost feels like Wizards is leaning into the label even more and giving us a day of yet more stellar cards for Commander. Today we have one of the game’s best blink commanders, numerous scary combo pieces, and, for the non-Commander players amongst us, a few great cards for Modern as well.

As Foretold

As Foretold

Two generic, one blue enchantment:

At the beginning of your upkeep, put a time counter on As Foretold.

Once each turn, you may pay zero generic rather than pay the mana cost for a spell you cast with mana value X or less, where X is the number of time counters on As Foretold.

Casting spells for free every turn is always good, which makes As Foretold a powerful card even if you play it the intended way. However, what makes As Foretold especially useful is how it interacts with cards with suspend.

Usually, if a spell has suspend, you pay the cost and place it into exile with a certain number of time counters. You then remove one each turn and can play the spell for free once you remove the last one. With As Foretold, you can completely bypass the suspend mechanic and play the spell for free straight away. This lets you get access to cards like Ancestral Vision and, more importantly, Living End.

As Foretold and Living End were a very popular Modern deck in 2017. By controlling the game in the early stages as you focus on cycling creatures to fill up your graveyard, you can then use As Foretold to cast Living End without suspending it to wipe your opponent’s board and put those cycled creatures into play to secure the win next turn.

Necrotic Ooze

Necrotic Ooze

Two generic, two black creature – Ooze – 4/3:

As long as Necrotic Ooze is on the battlefield, it has all activated abilities of all creature cards in all graveyards.

Double Masters 2022 may as well be called Combo Masters, because we’ve had so many cards like Ghave, Ezuri, and, now Necrotic Ooze that have huge combo potential. This is the first reprint we’ve seen of Necrotic Ooze outside of Secret Lair, following its debut in Scars of Mirrodin almost 12 years ago.

The power of Necrotic Ooze should be fairly self-apparent: if the table have graveyards full of creatures, Necrotic Ooze inherits the activated abilities of all of them. One of the most popular combos is by having Devoted Druid and Channeler Initiate in graveyard. You can then tap Necrotic Ooze to produce one green mana, put a -1/-1 counter on it to untap it with Devoted Druid’s other ability, and then use Channeler Initiate’s ability to remove a -1/-1 counter to produce another mana of any colour. With just three cards you have infinite mana, and your opponents can’t do much about it if they don’t have graveyard hate.

A particularly funny interaction came in last year’s Modern Horizons 2, with the card Grist, the Hungertide. Grist is a planeswalker, however its card text states that, as long as it’s not on the battlefield, it’s also a 1/1 insect creature. That means that, if Grist is in a graveyard, Necrotic Ooze can use its loyalty abilities as if it were a Planeswalker too.

Roon of the Hidden Realm

Roon of the Hidden Realm

Two generic, one green, one white, one blue legendary creature – Rhino Soldier – 4/4:

Pay two generic, tap Roon: Exile another target creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.

It’s so nice to see so many Commander precon-exclusive commanders get reprintings in Double Masters 2022, and it’s especially great to see Rhino Boy Roon make a return.

Roon of the Hidden Realm was only relatively recently supplanted by Brago, King Eternal as the game’s top blink commander. His ability is the slower kind of blink that exiles a creature and then returns them to the battlefield at the end step, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a big threat at tables before.

By bolstering his blink ability with cards like Panharmonicon, Conjurer’s Closet, and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling; Roon can repeatedly trigger enter-the-battlefield effects from cards like External Witness, Reclamation Sage, Acidic Slime, and Sun Titan to keep opponents at bay. A particularly nasty part of Roon’s strategy can involve stealing your opponents’ permanents with an Agent of Treachery, or making them lose multiple combat phases with Stonehorn Dignitary.

Roon has only ever been printed twice, the last time being in the 2017 Commander Anthology. This is the first time it’s ever seen a booster pack, though.

Thousand-Year Storm

Thousand-Year Storm

Four generic, one blue, one red enchantment:

Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, copy it for each other instant or sorcery spell you’ve cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.

Izzet (red/blue) Storm is an incredibly popular archetype in a whole host of formats, and Thousand-Year Storm is a fantastic card to go with it. Although it mostly sees play in Commander, it does make the odd appearance in Pioneer too, and will hopefully see more now that it’s getting The idea is simple: the more spells you cast, the more copies of them you get.

Any Izzet Spellslinger deck gets ridiculous value off of Thousand-Year Storm, and is often seen in Veyran, Voice of Duality decks. Most pertinent to Double Masters 2022, though, is Mizzix of the Izmagnus, which is also getting a reprint. Mizzix reduces the cost of every instant or sorcery spell you have by one generic for each experience counter on Mizzix, which means in just a few turns you could be throwing out the game’s splashiest spells for pittance and copying them a dozen times with Thousand-Year Storm.

Oracle of Mul Daya

Oracle of Mul Daya

Three generic, one green creature – Elf Shaman – 2/2:

You may play an additional land on each of your turns.

Play with the top card of your library revealed.

You may play the top card of your library if it’s a land card.

Oracle of Mul Daya really doesn’t help the running joke among the MTG community that Double Masters 2022 feels like it should’ve been named Commander Masters instead, because this is a Commander staple that’s been in desperate need of a reprint.

It’s only ever been printed twice before, with the last time being in 2020’s Jumpstart. Despite that, it sees significant play in Commander due to how efficiently it helps ramp green players. Even playing with the top card of your revealed isn’t too much of an issue for green if it means you can play the lands you reveal.

Oracle of Mul Daya fits into virtually any green Commander deck, but it serves the most use in landfall ones with commanders like Azusa, Lost But Seeking; Lord Windgrace, or Tatyova, Benthic Druid. It’s generally used alongside a suite of other cards to maximise land drops, similarly to Exploration and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.

NEXT: Magic: The Gathering's Double Masters 2022 Previews – Day Three Highlights