Narset, Enlightened Exile – Aftermath
Date Reviewed: July 4, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 2.50
Casual: 4.25
Limited: N/A
Multiplayer: 3.63
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
I find it rather amusing that some of the planeswalkers-turned-legendary-creatures in March of the Machine: The Aftermath are ones who we first saw as creatures. It’s easy to forget now, considering how long ago and far away the Khans of Tarkir block feels when we’re caught in the social media hype train, but Narset is among that number. So you might feel like this card is setting things back to an older mode for her role in Magic. I was actually surprised how few cards she got as a planeswalker; I think it feels like more because her War of the Spark card turned out to be so powerful in eternal formats that it feels like she’s been around more than she actually has.
Her older creature card was more expensive and had a lot of potential to get out of control over multiple turns, but this card seems like it’s intended to be both more aggressive and have generic spell synergy, with less randomness to be overcome. Blue and red have multiple ways to ensure you’ll always have something for her to cast, and it seems similarly convenient that white likes to generate lots of tokens for her to grant prowess. Despite her colors and her focus on noncreature spells, I think she might be a stealthy enabler for burn decks in Commander and other settings where that strategy hasn’t traditionally thrived.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 4
Limited: N/A (Aftermath is not formally draftable, though someone might try at some point)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
The long arc of history brought Narset to Jeskai colors, even in a timeline where Jeskai never existed, and Enlightened Exile is an interesting approach to her color combination. It combines spell recursion and buffing in one effect, and there’s some synergy with the two sides of it: cast spells to make Narset bigger, then swing with her and recast the spells you casu to make her bigger. She has to be bigger than the mana value of what you’re trying to copy…but it is free, and if you cast a spell with it, it will make her bigger. She has a lot of strange synergy with her own abilities, though the downside here is that she has no way to protect herself that isn’t a decent toughness value.
Still, Narset is interesting enough. One thing to note is that she gives your entire board prowess (and prowess instances do stack, if it comes to it), and if you pair this with the various “go wide” angles of red, white, and even blue, one proc of this can represent a lot of power added with a single spell (or single attack). I think she’s more cute than good, when it comes to Constructed play, but there might be room for her, and there’s definitely room for her at casual tables.
Constructed: 3 (I think you absolutely need to pair Narset with a haste enabler to make her work)
Casual: 4.5
Limited: N/A (probably a 3.5 to a 4.25, format-depending)
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4 (lots of fun approaches, either in the 99 or at the helm)
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