Of all the things I would have expected Magic to
let you commune with, lava is actually pretty
low on the list. Then again, it does fit with
the more action-oriented nature of Tarkir's
flavor. "It's like Commune with Nature . . .
except hotter!" In fact, it's arguably better
than Commune with Nature later in the game, when
you're more likely to need something with an
immediate impact. The issue it has is that you
need a lot of mana to get a good selection of
things to cast with it, which means you have
less mana to do so. Perhaps in a burn deck where
cards are cheap anyway? It's hard to say right
now, but I find it hard to believe that any
pseudo-card drawing effect is going to be
entirely useless.
Welcome back readers todays card is quite
interesting, Commune With Lava is a powerful X
spell that allows you to exile the top X cards
and play them with a timing restriction. The
upside is this card is instant speed and can
allow you to play those cards until the end of
your next turn. This card by itself does nothing
but relies on hitting other powerful cards to
make it worth it, being able to dig an extra X
cards deep. In standard I can see this in a
slower more controlling deck that features red
its not close to Sphinxes Revelation but it
tries to do its best impression, allowing you to
dig for finishers or more cards to help deal
with your opponents threats. This card fulfills
a niche role and fulfills it well. In modern,
legacy and vintage this card is just too much
mana it doesn't do enough to justify its
inclusion and is just in general too inefficient
for these more high powered formats. In casual
and multiplayer this card is pretty mediocre it
depends on the shell of your deck and if you
want to slam it down on your turn to try and get
some value or too hold it up alongside something
like a counterspell or removal, in certain decks
it can do okay but very specialized decks. In
limited this card is hard to grade it basically
can potentially draw you a few of the top X
cards but is very slow and has no immediate
impact on the board unless you hit another card
meaning its power level is quite low. Overall a
mixed bag a card I feel has some competitive and
casual potential but it remains to be seen.
Today's card of the day is Commune with Lava
which is a two Red and X instant that has you
exile the top X cards of your library and they
may be played until the end of your next turn.
This is up there with Fireball for being the
card you want in hand in an infinite mana build.
Even without that this has quite a bit of
potential in Red's high aggro or burn decks as a
source of card advantage after the early turns
where those builds often run out of tempo.
Overall it is strong in the right situations and
best when the deck is built entirely around it,
so it is likely going to be seen mostly in
Casual settings and possibly be a Competitive
dark horse for the notable card advantage.
In Limited this is an aggressive first pick in
Booster that can offer a fairly large advantage
in the later stages of the game, is an excellent
topdeck, and has minimal drawback overall.
In Sealed it does benefit from having a very
balanced mana curve and color distribution, with
more than a splash of Red. The potential
power of having two, three, or even more cards
at a very reasonable price makes playing Red
almost a given and it should not be overlooked
unless the remainder of the pool is terrible.
I misunderstood this card at first. I thought it
said “until end of turn, you can play those
cards,” but once I played against the card, my
opponent (unfortunately for me) had read the
card correctly, and knew to play it at the end
of my turn, untapping his lands, and
playing a lot of cool cards. This is really
quite brutal in most red decks. Burn decks that
run out of cards can draw a few more burn
spells. Creature-centric decks can usually find
one or two creatures to play. Any kind of deck
is likely to find another land they can play.
Of course, this is a late game card, so there
will be times and matchups where you only have
three or four mana and this is rather
underwhelming as you get nothing but land or
exile cards that are too expensive for your
current mana sources.
If you’re running mostly red, it’s worth it to
run at least a couple of these in a constructed
deck.
In multiplayer, this would be a lot of fun to
play if you have some effect that allows you to
untap your lands on opponents’ turns, since you
can have several opportunities to play any or
all of the cards you turn up!
