Agitator Ant – Commander 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

This guy reminds me of playing SimAnt on computers, many years ago. That game’s long-form mode usually ends with the humans (who act as an environmental hazard in individual scenarios) abandoning the house because of the ant infestation. If this was the ant involved, I would hardly blame them – remember, 2/2 is the same stats as a bear, or a drake!

The Agitator here is best at causing chaos in multiplayer games. Unless the goaded creatures have some kind of additional cost to attack that the opponents can choose not to pay, they’ll all be fighting each other for at least a turn or two and not you. That translates into time for you to get yourself together and onto your game plan. I wouldn’t recommend it in 1v1 games – goad requires the creature to attack someone other than you, which isn’t possible in that case, but it doesn’t prevent it from blocking!

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Commander: 4/5

All of the Commander 2020 cards for the week will not have Limited scores appended to them.

Agitator Ant is an interesting sort of political card, allowing everyone to benefit from buffs if they pretend to be nice to you. You even benefit by being able to boost one of your creatures permanently; if Agitator Ant lives to the end phase, you can make it a 4/4 (or bigger). It’s definitely too weak to see Constructed play, thanks to it buffing slowly (and goad backfiring in 1v1 games), but multiplayer allows for a lot of shenanigans to be had. When everyone attacks, someone (ideally you) is sure to come out on top.

Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 3
Multiplayer: 4 (can work great by starting an arms race from which there are no winners, besides you)
Commander: 4 (same deal, though do note that Agitator Ant is a “may” trigger, so people won’t be forced into horrible decisions without their assent)