Mishra's Burnished Banner Precon: Decklist, Value, and Verdict

Mishra, Eminent One

At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a token that's a copy of target noncreature artifact you control, except its name is Mishra's Warform and it's a 4/4 Construct artifact creature in addition to its other types. It gains haste until end of turn. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.

Singles value

$139.24

TCGplayer market, 87 cards, basic lands counted at $0

Sealed price

$101.44

TCGplayer price for the box (Amazon $149.99) · singles are 1.4× that

New cards

10 / 100

First printings in this deck

Bracket

Core, out of the box

Is Mishra's Burnished Banner worth buying?

from The Brothers’ War Commander Decks: Are They Worth It? by Ignacio (Iñaki)

This deck is a bit less straightforward in where its strengths lie. I think Mishra, Eminent One gets outshined by Ashnod the Uncaring easily, and I’d swap their places almost immediately. I think the strategy of the deck is solid and consistent, but it requires a bit more strategizing than “play as many tokens as you can then cover them in +1/+1 counters.” I would’ve expected this to work the other way, lore-wise. Mishra is a way more aggressive character, while Urza’s plans are more convoluted and confusing. That’s just a minor nitpick from a Vorthos type of player.

Unlike with the Urza cards, I think most Mishra cards don’t really fit in that well in this deck. Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa is by far the most useful when combined with Ashnod the Uncaring. The other two Brothers’ War Mishra cards could work, but they don’t bring anything too special. And don’t even consider Mishra, Artificer Prodigy. Even with all the artifact copy and recursion effects in this deck, it’s still pretty much completely useless.

How Mishra's Burnished Banner plays

There’s a significant difference in power levels at first glance between the two commanders for this set. Mishra, Eminent One has no cost reductions, no lord ability, and only has a single ability. This commander lets you copy one of your noncreature artifacts and make it into a 4/4 creature with haste. This is a relatively mild ability by itself, but it can be complemented well with several cards.

The deck has several cards that either benefit from when you sacrifice artifacts or that have ways of returning artifacts from your graveyard. This is complemented by Ashnod the Uncaring. Its ability leans heavily on you sacrificing permanents, and there are plenty of artifacts that sacrifice themselves to be activated. Having both ways to double that ability and bring the artifact back relatively quickly can prove powerful.

There’s a pretty good combo with Mishra, Eminent One. You need Voltaic Construct and Gilded Lotus or any other artifact that generates three or more mana. The copy created by Mishra is an artifact creature, so you can use Voltaic Construct to untap it over and over and generate infinite mana. That said, I personally prefer Ashnod the Uncaring as the deck’s commander because it can be exploited in more ways.