"Lord Windgrace: Omnath's Enabler."

"Lord Windgrace: Omnath's Enabler."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

When my friends told me that Omnath , Locus of Rage had a very high price spike I was curious as to why and as it turned out Lord Windgrace one of the 4 news Commanders that came out was causing it.

For today I would like to look at the commander that I openly called Lord Black Panther and his wonderful abilities as a planeswalker commander. 

For all intents and purposes this particular planeswalker has been dead for some time now but according to Magic lore his essence has joined with the land of Dominaria and has been protecting his people even if he has no body , much like Sauron would do if he was a good guy.

Of course this card represents Lord Windgrace before he met his demise. He comes with Jund colors and 2 colorless mana as a cost and chunky 5 loyalty counters for starters.

His +2 ability lets you discard a card then draw a card. A very red ability which reminds me a lot of Daretti but this one has an added bonus of caring if you threw a land card. If a land card was discard you get to draw an additional card.

Lord Windgrace wants you to load up all the lands in your graveyard.

Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper fits this deck quite nicely as well as cards like Dakmor Salvage. Fill up on lands and then reclaim for later! Yeah. In case you don't have these cards yet then you could check out his second ability.

And I guess this is the interaction that made Omnath increase in price overnight.

His -3  ability allows you to return 2 target lands in your graveyard directly into the battlefield. With Omnath in play and you are able to this targeting 2 fetchlands and you sacrifice those fetchlands to put another pair of lands into play then you are looking at 4 5/5 Elemental tokens because of Landfall! Since this does not count as your land drop for the turn assuming you have another fetch land (Evolving wilds or even terramorphic expanse). Then you could have another pair of 5/5 elementals that rounds it off to 6!

If you have Fervor in your deck or anything that can make your creatures have haste then you are looking at 35 points worth of damage! If you have a sacrifice outlet you can further convert your elementals into another 21 points of damage. Talk about squeezing value out of Omnath and this interaction.

If in case you don't need to abuse this second ability and you reach 11 loyalty counters on him then what you have is a targeted removal on up to 6 non-land permanents. You can remove those pesky things from your opponents side of the board , even use this as political tool to help an ally out but in each case you basically weaken your opponents while getting 6 2/2 Green Cat Warrior tokens with Forestwalk. 

Lord Windgrace can shift things in your favor in the right situations. I am excited to battle against this stock deck or even one of the improved ones that a friend might bring.

I might consider just buying a single and make my own deck here. I do have all the pieces after all. Hmmmmm