Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa – The Brother’s War
Date Reviewed: November 22, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.63
Casual: 4.63
Limited: 4.13
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.13
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
We’re not used to turning to black and red when we need to protect key cards, but maybe we should start. I’m serious – this version of Mishra hurts Doom Blade guys as much as the nastiest untargetable creature does, or maybe even more. The whole point of control decks is to run your opponents out of resources and keep your own, and he turns that on its head. And somehow he’s not done, as he might have even more appeal as a synergy/combo card. You don’t even have to go all the way up to Sundering Titan or Mindslaver to take out an entire table – consider how well he works with equipment, or any artifact creature with a sacrifice effect.
In the storyline, Mishra was Urza’s opposite in many ways: much more charismatic, and much more ruled by emotion than by logic. This connection to his emotions was what gave him an affinity for the animal-like machines of Phyrexia’s first sphere, such as the dragon engine in this card’s art. It was also what opened the door for him to be corrupted by Gix, which is rather thought-provoking in its own way.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 5
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
While you might not necessarily associate Rakdos with artifact support and recursion in most cases, Mishra’s artificer things make it a reasonable fit here, and the set’s rare Mishra is a pretty interesting set of abilities. While the reanimation is limited to your artifacts (giving them one last bit of usefulness), his protection effect extends to everything, himself included. In a world where there are more tokens than ever, this means a bit less than it normally might…but it can add up against certain decks and strategies, and it alleviates the issue of Mishra sometimes just eating a removal spell with no consequence. While five mana is a bit steep, Mishra does still have a nice role as a value-oriented artifact commander with a bevy of tricks up his sleeves.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
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