We are now several weeks into the Gatecrash era of the Return to Ravnica block, and all ten guilds have been adequately represented in one of the two sets. It only seems fitting that they should be represented here as well. After all, Commander decks are rarely limited to single colors. Indeed, it’s quite the opposite – mono-color decks are the less commonly used ones. (If you’re really up for a challenge, colorless is an option too.)

And yet, to this point, we have had no mention of multicolor cards on the Commander Spotlight.

Coincidence? I think not.

Two-color pairings have exited in the game almost since the beginning, but since the creation of the original guilds on Ravnica, it’s now a common habit to associate those pairings with their respective guilds (in the same way that allied wedge colors have been since the Alara block). So we’re going to play along. In step with the Gatecrash environment and the lead-up to Dragon’s Maze (the final set in the RtR block), we will be doing a multicolor card of week until they are all represented.

The guild order was chosen randomly, as to not think of any favoritism. I won’t let you know who drew the short straw. I can, however, show you who is starting us off.

Today we have: Lim-Dul’s Vault

Name: Lim-Dul’s Vault

Edition: Alliances

Rarity: Uncommon

Focus: Deck Manipulation

Highlights: The colors of House Dimir are notorious for deck manipulation. Blue has unparalleled advantage with card drawing, and yet Black is not far behind. What’s more, Black has a pretty decent stranglehold on unrestricted tutoring cards. Blue is also particularly good at fixing the top of your deck (looking at X cards and rearranging them).

Lim-Dul’s Vault gives you a little variant mixture of those components.

For an efficient two mana, you are able to rearrange the top five cards of your library, or, if you aren’t a fan of what you have coming up, pay a life, put those five cards on the bottom and rearrange the next five. Still don’t like them? Pay one life and do it again. And again. And again. Keep going until you’re satisfied. In a normal game, paying four, six, eight life simply to dig through your deck may not be the most desired effect, but in Commander, it’s a lot more viable.

The other thing it really has going for it is that it operates at instant speed. The state of the game can change rapidly, and it helps to be able to respond to that just as quickly. Casting the Vault before your turn allows you to determine what you need to best answer the situation, and then go digging for it. Essentially, it’s a multicolor Vampiric Tutor that also happens to be about 10-15 times cheaper. (If you want to go even more modest, consider Diabolic Vision, a sorcery-speed alternative allowing you to fix the top five cards and then draw one for the same casting cost.)

Now, does it out right replace the efficiency of a Demonic / Diabolic / Vampiric Tutor? Absolutely not. But if Commander has taught the secondary market anything, it’s that obscure cards long considered second-rate to ‘strictly-better’ cards can find new life. The one-card restriction forces us to get creative. Lim-Dul’s Vault was a popular card in its time, and thanks to Commander, it can find a rebirth here.

Stay tuned for the next guild-based Commander card. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.

You can discuss this article over on our forums!

Do you have a particular Commander card to suggest for us to shine a future Spotlight on? You can send suggestions to ryan@cardboardrepublic.com