Welcome to the inaugural post of Forgotten Ancients! Here we’ll highlight powerful Commander spells that have been long forgotten. Yap, each week we’ll show off a fantastic Commander card that’s low in demand and high in Commander playability.

Cards forgotten by constructed players and iconic to Commander fans, Forgotten Ancients are powerful and inexpensive that you should be considered in many EDH/Commander builds.

Today in the Den: Gate to Phyrexia

(Sacrifice a creature: Destroy target artifact. Activate this ability only during your upkeep and only once each turn.)

Gate to Phyrexia fills a gaping hole in black’s arsenal of destruction spells, artifact removal!

Black is known for many things in Commander, but artifact removal is not one of them.  Mono-black and UB decks in EDH have massive problems dealing with artifacts and enchantments that have past hand disruption and permission. This forgotten ancient will help your black deck complete its suite of removal to effectively control powerful artifacts on the board.

Synergies:

Gate to Phyrexia fits perfectly into the puzzle of Black synergy.  This enchantment provides undefined resources that exploits sacrifice, resurrection, and token production.  Black decks in Commander revolve around these effects to create powerful syngeries with cards like Contamination, Grave Pact, and Harvester of Souls.  With these synergies already present, adding an additional sac. outlet like Gate to Phyrexia for artifact destruction really helps black in it’s control efforts.

Recommended Decks: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Geth, Lord of the Vault, Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Savra, Queen of the Golgari,

Gate to Phyrexia is a great Forgotten Ancient of Commander, and it should perform very well in decks that abuse the sacrifice strategy.  Pick one of these guys up at your favorite online retailer because I doubt your local shop will carry them.

Cheers!