Four decks, four old mechanics
Commander 2019 is a four-deck precon release with no booster product, so there is nothing here to draft. Its organising idea is unusual for the line: each deck is built on a returning keyword mechanic rather than on a color combination or a tribe.
That makes it the most legible year of the series. Morph, flashback, madness and populate each get a deck, and each deck's new cards exist to make that mechanic work in a hundred-card singleton format where it otherwise struggles.
Themes
Morph
Cast a creature face down as a 2/2 for three, then turn it up later for its morph cost. The Faceless Menace deck is built to make face-down creatures a threat rather than a curiosity.
Flashback
Cast the spell from your graveyard for its flashback cost, then exile it. Mystic Intellect turns a singleton deck's spent spells back into a resource.
Madness
If you discard the card, you may cast it for its madness cost instead of putting it in the graveyard. Merciless Rage is built to discard on purpose, which is what madness needs to stop being a drawback.
Populate
Copy a creature token you control. Primal Genesis makes the tokens worth copying, since populate is only as good as the best token on your board.
Where You Can Play It
Commander 2019 shipped as precon decks only, under a single code. It was never Standard- or Pioneer-legal, and there is no booster set to have a separate legality.
Standard was never in play for this set, so no rotation has ever touched it. Nothing here leaves Modern, Legacy, Vintage or Commander either. Commons from any set are Pauper-legal; that isn't listed per set here.
Commander
One per mechanic, which is what makes this year of the series easy to shop.
Faceless Menace
Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer
Blue-black-green, and the morph deck.
Mystic Intellect
Sevinne, the Chronoclasm
White-blue-red, built on flashback.
Merciless Rage
Anje Falkenrath
Black-red madness, and the most played of the four.
Primal Genesis
Ghired, Conclave Exile
Red-green-white tokens and populate.
Building one of these into something of your own? The precon buying guide covers how to judge a deck, and the Commander deck template is the shape to build toward.
FAQ
Faceless Menace, led by Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer (morph); Mystic Intellect, led by Sevinne, the Chronoclasm (flashback); Merciless Rage, led by Anje Falkenrath (madness); and Primal Genesis, led by Ghired, Conclave Exile (populate).
No. It shipped as precon decks with no booster product, so it was never Standard- or Pioneer-legal. C19 cards are legal in Commander, Legacy and Vintage.
Merciless Rage is the most played of the four, mostly because Anje Falkenrath turns the deck's discard into a genuine engine. Faceless Menace is the most distinctive to play against, since face-down creatures hide information the whole table wants.
No. There is no booster product for C19, only the four preconstructed decks, so there is no Limited format.
Copy a creature token you already control. It is only as good as the best token on your board, which is why Primal Genesis spends its new cards making tokens worth copying.
All card names, art, and mechanics belong to Wizards of the Coast. Commander 2019 released on Aug 23, 2019; details reflect the set as published. Sources: Wizards of the Coast set pages and release notes, Draftsim, Untapped.gg.
TurnZero HQ keeps deck records, MMR, and moments for every Commander night, so you can see which new cards are actually earning their slot.
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