Eris, Roar of the Storm
– Outlaws of Thunder Junction
Date Reviewed: May 17, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 1.38
Casual: 4.25
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Eris is interesting, not least because all that game text adds up to something we might consider unsubtle by the standards of spellslinger cards. All they actually do is smack people over the head really hard and make things that smack people over the head really hard. But then again, if you’re playing a spellslinger deck, you’re already playing lots of cards that draw more cards, stack your deck legally, and do other suitably subtle things. And when your deck is full of such cards, it can sometimes be hard to actually move the game forward, and an elemental that smacks people and makes dragon tokens might be exactly what the archetype needs sometimes. From a design analysis point of view, I really like the use of the “different mana value” clause. It makes the cost reduction more fair, more interesting – and more encouraging of play styles other than jamming every Preordain variant and being done.
Constructed: 1
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Despite costing 10 mana on paper, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll cast Eris, Roar of the Storm for 10 mana; the cost reduction makes it fairly reasonable to have his cost down to the two colored mana he asks for, and the reward is a spellslinger payoff that pays off further spellslinging. Prowess, along with making more bodies with prowess, can make things snowball hard if you get a head of steam going, and the colors he’s in are ideal for making such things happen. You can even get value the turn you resolve Eris by following up with another spell, and note that the wording specifically calls out “each turn”.
The main knock against Eris is that it’s a set-up that can be a bit fragile to get going; you really want to be able to get that Dragon Elemental on the same turn, so you need to get three or four different mana values into your graveyard to get the cost reasonable enough, a demand that gets a bit tricker with repeated casts and that would rather not see graveyard hate come out to play. Eris is maybe a bit higher maintenance as far as commanders go, but I’d say he can be higher reward if you give him the space he needs.
Constructed: 1.75 (way too much set-up demanded to make him usable, and that’s not counting needing more fuel once he’s out)
Casual: 4.5
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4 (there are definitely things you need to make sure are cleared out or are not a problem for him to really shine)
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