EOE’s Kavu Commander is a Better Sneak Attack in the Command Zone

Last updated on July 18, 2025

Sneak Attack – art by Tyler Jacobson

With Edge of Eternities reveal season wrapping up, and just when it seemed that Ragost, Deft Gastronaut had no rival as EOE's coolest commander, a Kavu pilots warped into the fray all guns blazing, ready to dispute Ragost's claim: Tannuk, Steadfast Second 

Tannuk, Steadfast Second is the tusked, space-faring baby of Sneak Attack and Fires of Yavimaya – or perhaps Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded‘s spiky baby brother. Judging from Magic players' comments, he's one of the most exciting red cards from the upcoming MTG set.

Lil' Red God: Tannuk, Steadfast Second

Tannuk, Steadfast Second  brings two Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded‘s into a 4-mana body. Firstly, it's a Fires of Yavimaya, granting all your creatures haste.

But then comes the sneaky part: Both Purphoros and our Kavu pilot have an activated ability that lets you cheat big creatures and artifacts from your hand, for the low price of and having to get rid of them by the end of the turn – pretty similar to Sneak Attack.

Except for the activation cost (Sneak Attack costs just ) Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded and the red enchantment have the same rules text: You put (rather than cast) a creature from your hand, and you have to sacrifice it at the end of the turn.

Kavu works a bit differently: He gives warp to cards in your hand. Warp has some tradeoffs when comparing to Purporos' ability – and while not strictly better, it's arguably more efficient:

• On the “Negatives” column, warp lets you cast the creature; that's usually worst than putting a creature into play, since Counterspell will work against casting, but not putting. And warp exiles the creature during your end step, so you miss on sacrifice synergies and death triggers (exiling does not count as dying in Magic's rules). And you don't put the creature in your graveyard, so you also miss on reanimation or escape shenanigans.
• But, on the “Positives” column, you can cast warped cards from exile! The ability to cast an exiled card is something that comes from warp, not from Tannuk (he just lets you warp the card). So anything that Tannuk warps in will be available to you for the rest of the game.

And there's also the fine print of what is it that Purporos, Sneak Attack, and Kavu let you cheat into play:

• Sneak Attack works with any creature,
• Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded works with red creatures, or artifact creatures (of any color!),
• Tannuk, Steadfast Second  lets you warp in any red creature, or any artifact (not just creature artifacts, like Purphoros does).

Tannuk, Steadfast Second  is probably worse than Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded if you want to warp in a Phyrexian Triniform or Blightsteel Colossus, since part of their fun is what happens when they go to your graveyard.

But Kavu can slam down a Portal to Phyrexia for just three mana!

“I think that I like this effect more than Purphoros's version,” notes u/Vazad in one of Tannunk's reveal threads on Reddit .”Warp lets you cast it later if you need so if you have a bunch of enters the battlefield effects you can get each of them at least twice. Admittedly Purphoros has far more power and is indestructible so there are good reasons to run it over Tannuk.”

“Yeah,” agrees u/red3pit, “the fact that Purphoros is indestructible and not even a creature most of the time is his biggest saving grace, but my list has other ways of getting value out of the sacrificed creatures, or just blink/reanimate them so I think I'll stay with my big boy at helm

If you're thinking about which one of them to put in your command zone, Purphoros may end up being the best choice since indestructible goes a long way… But this is a great example of when “Por qué no los dos?” works like a charm: whichever you think is best can be your red commander, and the other work as backup in the 99.

Tannuk, Steadfast Second in Standard?

“2 triggers from Overlord of the Boilerbilges for 3 Mana?” says u/Dexelele, wondering if Big Red is finally back.

And not just two triggers: There's also a red-hot hasty 5/5 going face!

Still, we live in a Standard format in which Dimir is one of the most popular archetypes and most list\s don't play a powerhouse like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, or just include a single copy. For aggressive builds, a four-drop needs to either be impactful now, be really hard to deal with, or ideally a both (in Dimir's case, that's Enduring Curiosity).

“I hope he gets to do something cool, but my intuition is that it's a bit too fragile,” notes u/Soggy-Bedroom-3673. “Can you even build a deck that is playable without this guy on the field but that can still take advantage of his ability? 

“I still (sadly) believe this card is one of many cool effects that are too slow to make waves in Standard”, says u/stysiaq. “A great commander for sure but big red is a forever pipe dream wotc teases us with and it never gets there.”

That being said, Trumpeting Carnosaur was competitive in Standard not that long ago. And Magic's Head Designer Mark Rosewater is on the record saying they do want to give red more ramping options, as we've seen with Sunset Strikemaster in Tarkir: Dragonstorm.

So perhaps not this set, but soon enough?

What can't be denied is that Tannuk, Steadfast Second  has, by a couple of light years, the best flavor text we've seen in ages:

“We’re a few bones short of a skeleton crew, Sami, but we’ve got plenty of spine.”

Now THAT is what a good line looks like!!