The longer you interact within any niche community, particularly a community where its body politic is either continually being rejuvenated by an influx of new members or outright replacing them in a revolving door fashion, and you’re inevitably going to see recurring topics of discussion on an almost clocklike cycle.

Sometimes it’s simply a case of newcomers asking the same intuitive questions time and time again. “How do I do X?” “What is everyone’s favorite process for Y?” Other times it’s a series of topics that don’t have blanket and easy-to-solve solutions, especially when discussed briskly online. “What is the preferable way to do Thing A?” “Couldn’t we improve Thing B by doing Things C-M?” And so on.

Magic is no different. There are a slew of questions new players inevitably ask once past the initial learning period of the game and they feel more comfortable diving into anything beyond sheer basics and rules clarifications. These can be inquiries on design choices, or deck building discussions, or questions on the lengthy-if-uneven decades of Magic: the Gathering lore.

More than anything else though, the Magic corner with the most endlessly repetitive line of questions is about the game’s color pie philosophy – what each color can and can’t do from a features perspective. Part of this is because the ideas around color capabilities has evolved and changed over nearly three decades. But mostly it’s because it takes time and experience with the game to fully comprehend the less obvious structural tenants of each color. Once players move from the novice to journeyman stage of their Magic tenure, there’s an understandable and natural curiosity towards the game’s inner workings. The ‘whys’ of color behavior is a natural part of that progression.

This has two ramifications. First, thanks to this de facto rite of passage for most Magic players, it guarantees such conversations are repeated over and over (and over) again. And second, by extension, it reveals the subtext behind such line of questioning. Because in truth, when many of us over the years have asked ‘why’ about certain colors, what we’re really trying to get answered is ‘why not?’. Why can’t my color do this thing I want. Why can’t it have this feature that would make my deck that much better. Why can’t a color be all things to all people. In the Commander era, where such things matter more than normal, it’s even more prevalent.

Color pie philosophy and restrictions are not something I have a hard and fast stance on. There are effects that colors used to have access to that they don’t anymore and others that have picked up new tricks along the way. Some of those decisions I agree with. Some I don’t. And while I vehemently defend the notion that a healthy and robust Magic: the Gathering needs to have limitations on a color’s powers, it also doesn’t mean that I’m immediately going to refuse to use a card that’s considered a color ‘break’ – especially if it’s something a color used to do but had it taken away from them.

That is, unless it becomes a crutch.

Back in early 2014 (where has the time gone??), one such example I gave of a worthwhile card break was the Red spot removal card Aftershock. As mentioned, part of the argument was that it was a decent variant and a comparatively less broken card option than Chaos Warp. Roughly 3 years later, a reader and fairly new Commander player was going through some of these previous Monday Magic pieces and came across the Aftershock piece. I know this because he later emailed me with a spirited but commonly heard counterargument. In his mind, if a player was willing to use a color pie breaking card, then why not use the one with the best potential? Especially one that can be used whenever you want. So…why not just go with Chaos Warp in such cases every time?

This maximalist logic makes sense if you don’t care for card variety and take a more optimized approach to Commander deck building. It’s a logic I understand, but being someone who values the casual spirit of the format, one I don’t remotely subscribe to.

What I would concede is that sometimes your circumstances may prefer a card that can be equally proactive and reactive, where a sorcery speed option simply won’t cut it. Amusingly in this case there too exists an example to fit such needs, and it also happens to be from the exact same time period.

Today we have: Fissure

Name: Fissure

Edition: The Dark / Fourth Edition

Rarity: Common

Focus: Spot Removal

Highlights: Truth be told, during my early Magic years I didn’t actually use Aftershock all that much. I saw its merit, especially when contending with some of the scarier creatures of that period, but with only 20 life to work with self-damaging spells were more than the risk-averse me of the late 90s preferred. I had another spot remover in Red I opted for instead. That card was Fissure.

In a lot of ways – largely thanks to its now out of bounds effect – Fissure still holds up by today’s standards as an effective card for multiplayer casual formats like Commander. At 5 mana, Fissure is not the cheapest spot removal card in the game, but if you exclude some of the game’s most egregiously costed removal cards out there, 5 really isn’t that terrible to pick off nearly any creature. And it’s still one of the better such options within Red, especially as a modal card.

Here, Fissure offers two instant speed options. First, you can destroy any targetable creature on the battlefield. As with many early Magic removal cards, that destruction comes with a rider which nullifies Regeneration – a highly useful value-added rider for years but one that’s much, much more situational nowadays. But such cards are still played, so take it as a bonus. More importantly, the capability of casting Fissure either on offense or defense is quite fortuitous, eliminating a troublesome creature or dangerous attacker depending on your needs. That option alone should make it worth consideration in an EDH setting.

Second, Fissure is also able to destroy any land, making it one of just 8 instant speed land destruction cards in Red. While you’re likely to have less of an immediate need for that compared to creatures (at least in most Commander situations), the ability to pick off a land in a key moment – or at least not having to spend the mana on your turn to do it – can still be a handy option.

The capability to fiercely respond to specific threats on the board the longer the game progressed proved to be quite advantageous over the years in a color that until very recently had a hard time scaling up its efficacy in lengthier multiplayer scenarios.

Perhaps most surprising though is that, generally speaking, after all this time it still holds up.

And yes, it also has the bonus upside of offering another alternative to the now oversaturated Chaos Warp while still being strikingly cheap to acquire despite not having been reprinted since 1995.

So hey, if you’re going do roll with a break, why not do it with some originality?

Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.

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