The Commanders of Warhammer 40,000
Welcome to the "McDarby Files," where I give y'all the lowdown on just how exactly we translated the bolters and flamers of Warhammer 40,000 into the triggered and activated abilities of Magic.
In fact, my Warhammer 40,000 journey started at the exact same time I discovered Magic. My first Prerelease was Zendikar (the original), wherein somebody opened some card called Bayou, and everybody was clapping and cheering for them. I was so impressed that a community came together to cheer on somebody just for opening a seemingly simple card.
And at the very same East Town mall in Knoxville, Tennessee, I began my Warhammer 40,000 journey by purchasing just enough miniatures of a T'au army to field 2,000 points (if I tricked out all my units). I was very proud of my XV88 Broadside Battlesuits, which I had painted to look like different Mobile Suit Gundams.
As a college student, however, I learned I eventually only had enough time to fully focus on one life-encompassing hobby, which is why I work here at Wizards of the Coast and not at Games Workshop. But I still kept up with the war game, so you can imagine how excited I was when Ethan asked me to join his team!
If you'd like to read more about how we design for Universes Beyond in general, check out Mark Rosewater's article. And if you'd like to hear about the strategy of designing this set from the lead himself, make sure to check out Ethan's article.
Now join me as we visit the grim-dark shores of the 41st millennium!
Celestine, the Living Saint
Alas, Celestine is our lone mono-white representative. The grim-dark world of Warhammer 40,000 doesn't lend itself well to pure representations of morality, order, peace, and structure. But Celestine fits that bill! As one of the most galvanizing figures on the battlefield, she can perform miracles—such as bringing back fallen allies. I've devoted a fair amount of my card design efforts expanding white's slice of the color pie as it relates to Commander, but this time, I just rattled off this line of text, and it stuck! Sometimes you don't want a card to solve itself, and other times Occam's razor proves true, and you just want more life-gain-matters effects in your deck!
Anrakyr the Traveller
Anrakyr, our first representative of the robotic, skeletal Necrons, introduces a common theme: Necrons sure do like artifacts! And in Magic, black can do almost anything for a price, which is as Necron as it gets. Anrakyr woke from the Great Sleep on the Tomb World of Pyrrhia and wanders the cosmos attempting to unify the Necrons. His representation here is quite simple and useful: use life as a resource to cast artifacts! The ability started off simply looking at your hand, but graveyards are kinda the Necrons' thing. You'll most likely see the ability coming (watch out for Lightning Greaves!), but The Cauldron of Eternity can be yours for a mere 12 life. And hey, that means you have 28 life points to spare!
Illuminor Szeras
Ol' Szeras here is kinda the reason why the entire Necrontyr civilization is cursed (or blessed as some might see it) with eternal robotic undeath. So, since he sacrificed an entire race basically for power, what better way to honor him than to literally give him the text of the card Sacrifice? While Dark Ritual might be the most iconic black spell of all time, fast mana is extremely dangerous to put on a card, especially one that starts in the command zone! But to honor my buddy Roscoe's Tasigur, the Golden Fang deck that wanted to threaten and sacrifice opponent's creatures (without red cards), Illuminor Szeras has come to life. Just don't ask him to sacrifice himself; who would do that?!
Mortarion, Daemon Primarch
Morty being here is a pretty big deal. He was once one of the twenty imperial Primarchs who were "sons" of the Emperor of Mankind. But after getting friendly with a scythe and some poison, he eventually swore fealty to the Chaos God Nurgle. Since poison is his thing, we wanted some sort of life-loss-matters ability. And depending on how much life you lose, you can call forth that many Death Guard Chaos Space Marines. You can tell they're Chaos because they have menace! Regular Astartes wouldn't dare be menacing in their vigilance.
Trazyn the Infinite
I love a good Necrotic Ooze. The ability to give your creatures abilities by interacting with black's favorite zone leads to some really sweet stories. What I don't like, though, is having to care about everybody's graveyard. I only wanna care about mine! Thus: Trazyn was born. Fun fact: instead of deathtouch, he used to have the ability to pay life to copy an ability. But that made him live up to his name a little too much.
Imotekh the Stormlord
Imotekh is a great "lieutenant" to Szarekh for this deck. He does lots of things that can be considered the "glue" that holds all your artifacts together. While he may get rid of your artifacts in the yard, he makes up for it by making more artifacts in play! And they can attack people as well! He's a smart cookie, and anybody who makes this deck is also a very smart pastry.
Szarekh, the Silent King
The Face of the Necrons! I can't be silent when I say I went through more iterations of Szarekh than I think any other card. The one thing I knew I wanted was for him to mill cards and care about artifacts. Ethan solidified the theme of the deck by aligning all the mills to mill 3, and he's a generically "good" commander. He's got Restoration Angel stats and draws just a little more than one card every turn. Plus, his devotion to the Necrons (and black) cannot be understated.
Khârn the Betrayer
This is perhaps the wildest card I've ever made. I'm honestly surprised it worked within the rules. A lot of our job is bending the rules of Magic, or finding some tasty design space, and hoping that rules managers (who are incredibly awesome) deign it possible (thank you, Tabak and Jess!). Well, this guy has "betray" right there in the name, so he's gotta get passed around the table, right, and he's really hard to kill. So, let's just
Oh, and there's gotta be something in it for Khârn's controller, right? So, let's draw some cards! My dream is to be in a pod where all four of us are Kharrying Khârn for the true Kollective Khorne Experience.
The Red Terror
The Red Terror likes red sources. The Red Terror also likes when numbers go up. Sometimes the only good bug is a red bug.
Old One Eye
The elder Tyranid of the crew likes to trample because he's so Colossal. Other players seeing him rise from the graveyard to ignore the commander tax will cause Dread. And each time you cast him, he'll bring in a friend with almost as big of a Maw.
Belisarius Cawl
This
Neyam Shai Murad
Rogue Traders are pirates, uh, I mean, traders, that the Imperium of Man have given permission to travel beyond the borders of the Imperium. So, I wanted to communicating "Trader" with just a hint of "Traitor" in her design. She plunders tombs obtaining information for her trading partner, but while obtaining the whole MacGuffin for herself. As another entry in the long line of black-white politics cards, another player sows all the decisions! You just get to reap the delicious benefits, which are in your favor, of course. If there are no decisions (say you only have one really awesome permanent in your graveyard), that's just how it goes eh? *Smiles in Orzhov*
Deathleaper, Terror Weapon
Flash and haste are my two favorite keywords to see on the same card. It really drives home just how unnaturally agile a creature is. And Deathleaper is the ultimate assassin of the Tyranids, delivering not only physical horror, but psychological horror, too. It might always be right there behind you (flash), and once it's there, it'll be unrelenting in its strikes (double strike). Also, it's quick (haste). This is a sweet angle for red-green and is a hidden haste-matters commander!
Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph
Ghyrson is a Kelermorph, who represents the Genestealer Cult, a faction that causes revolts and uprisings in Imperial-controlled worlds, all in the name of their xenos gods, before these gods (Tyranids) arrive on the planet to consume everything—including the Genestealers themselves. Kelermorphs are deadeyes with their Liberator Autostubs, and Ghyrson Starn here is known far and wide as a hero. In Commander, "pingers" with Prodigal Sorcerers and Prodigal Pyromancers are a popular strategy, so I wanted to reward fans with a new commander. Now all of your pingers (who you must now call Starn's Disciples) will be dealing triple damage thanks to Ghyrson. Giddyap, Kelermorph!
Inquisitor Eisenhorn
While the Inquisition tends to brand most beings as heretics, the one of their own who most lives up to the inquisitor title is Eisenhorn. He's been through a lot, even for an inquisitor. While there are many directions that we could have focused on with him, the two most important ones were the Malus Codicium, a grimoire of devastating potential, and Cherubael, a daemonhost whose destiny is intermixed with Eisenhorn and who he eventually controls with the aforementioned book. Eisenhorn is an inquisitor, so naturally he investigates, and he turns your library into the Malus Codicium itself to summon Cherubael! The ability to repeatedly create a legendary creature is always sort of awkward in Magic, but I predict you'll be able to figure out some fun ways to exploit this fact.
Lucius the Eternal
Lucius, as you might imagine, is eternal, never truly dying as a champion of Slaanesh. Whoever kills Lucius (and enjoys it) finds themselves slowly and painfully transforming into Lucius himself, with their soul being trapped within his armor. Yeah, the future is just not a very nice place to be. Anyway, in Commander, he "haunts" another creature, only to reappear when that creature leaves the battlefield. Quite a literal interpretation of the Soulthief!
Magnus the Red
Now, I know what you're saying: "Why is he blue?" As Mark Rosewater explained, not every IP in the world matches directly to Magic's color pie. While flavor is very important (especially for a top-down set such as this), good gameplay is even more important. Magnus the Red is one of the few Primarchs still around, and as the Demon Prince of Tzeentch, he leads his Thousand Sons Traitor Legion to victory against the Imperium. He's particularly gifted with psychic ability, which is easily translated to Magic as instants and sorceries. He's a rare example of an enabler and a payoff. That's just how strong a Primarch is!
Commissar Severina Raine
Severina is just doing her job in an ungrateful galaxy in the Astra Militarum fighting for the Imperium. When the captain of her newly assigned unit refused an order because it would lead to great casualties, she executed him and took command. Good soldiers follow orders after all. I've always had a hard time making a black-white tokens deck in Commander, so I simply wanted to design a commander that would make me play the archetype. While there are many, many types of Magic players, each with their own correct way to have fun, I have strong faith that players like drawing cards, gaining life, and making their opponents lose life.
Abaddon the Despoiler
The face of Chaos! Abaddon is quite the player in the history of Warhammer 40,000. As a Chaos Lord, he fancies chaos. And what's more chaotic than cascade? For a while, we tried to make a new mechanic for each deck. But as time went on, we realized that people like cascade, and we understand it, so why not just do more of that? Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder may have a lockdown on four-color cascade on your turn, but Abaddon can grant his chaotic boon to spells cast not even on your turn! Blood for the Blood God and all that, am I right?
Be'lakor, the Dark Master
Turns out, one thing both Magic and Warhammer 40,000 have is Demons! So, we made Be'lakor the Demon lord we've always wanted. While Demons are usually black in Magic, he works with red Demons like Balor, and gets along with blue Demons, too! Oh, there aren't any? Well, I'm sure blue can find some way to copy Demons. Be'lakor can come down before or after your Demons for value. Be'lakor was the first Daemon Prince the Ruinous Powers brought back, and he's first in our hearts as Magic's greatest Demon lord.
Inquisitor Greyfax
The face of the Imperium! As an inquisitor, it is imperative that she investigates heresy, as heretics to the Imperium of Man are everywhere. Everywhere! With her boltgun, power sword, psyker abilities, and sweet hat, she'll investigate creatures for heresy, all while inspiring her own troops to fight for the God-Emperor of Mankind. Did I mention she's really vigilant in searching out heresy?
Magus Lucea Kane
Unique to this set, Magus Lucea Kane was a new character that we got to design! The Creative team did an absolutely amazing job with her, and since she didn't have an existing datasheet, we got to make our own Temur Genestealer! She went through many different revisions, eventually landing on this copy creature with light +1/+1 counter synergy. "Copy" is my favorite word in the entire game, and if you ever played my Live the Dream Cube on Magic Online, you'll know I attempted an "X spells matters" theme with cards like Zaxara, the Exemplary and Unbound Flourishing. So, I figured, "Why not?" and eventually convinced folks to print this version that lets you copy permanents with X in a cost. Oh, and adding mana is very strong!
Marneus Calgar
Marneus Calgar is the current Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, and it's easy to see why. The most important feature of this dude is his hands, which are wielding the Gauntlets of Ultramar. Double strike carries a lot of weight, and, in a rare case for Magic, here it's communicating this guy punching you with both of his enormous meat hooks. Not only can he call in other Astartes for assistance, with them (or with other tokens) comes important intel, as he's also a master tactician. You gotta hand it to him; he's got a fistful of tokens, and he knows what to do with him.
The Swarmlord
The face of the Tyranids! He (She? They? It? It's best not to ask) is the most powerful Tyranid the Hive Mind has ever constructed, and it's easy to see why. This pinnacle of evolution expresses itself as an ever-growing monstrosity that continuously generates resources and power before your eventual consumption of the game and all who play it. Aren't Tyranids fun?
Phew, we've done it! That's all the commanders you'll find in this product that are fit to shake a chainsword at. I'm very excited to see all the sweet directions in which you all take these cards. Much like building a Warhammer 40,000 army, a Commander deck can be infinitely customizable as you make it your own work of art! It was an incredible privilege and honor to have a hand in making these cards with the team, and I hope you all have even a fraction of the fun creating decks and playing with these cards as I did designing them.
And remember, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only Commander.
David McDarby
@J_Beleren