Getting Colder

Well, I said I was going to do this, and I knew this might happen. The first set with any legendary creatures was Legends. And then the next three releases had none. The Dark, Fallen Empires, and the core set Fourth Edition came and went with no new additions. Then, finally, mercifully, they printed Ice Age. 373 new cards, “fixed” dual lands, snow-covered basic lands that could be used for different effects depending on the cards you played…and four legends. Four.

Can’t I skip this one? Are any of them good?

…crap.

Total Options

Like I said, there’s a whole four of them, so I can actually talk about each one without feeling like I’m wasting time. One is a meme, without question. One is halfway between meme and powerful. One is objectively great. And the last one is SKELETON SHIIIIIIIIIIP.

Power

Let’s talk about the good one, and the sorta good one.

Marton Stromgald is a tiny man for a not insignificant cost, and he doesn’t get bigger. In fact, he does the opposite. He makes all your other creatures bigger. A lot bigger, since red is very good at making a lot of creatures quickly. The downside of this is, Marton is probably charging forward to his death. If you can keep him alive, though, you can run all manner of mono-red strategies. Goblins, elementals, dwarves, tokens, Good Stuff, whatever you want. Marton will make them hurt.

Merieke Ri Berit is, like many cards of her time (insert a long aside about Time Vault here), balanced around not having access to cards that we have access to now. The intention is that she is a one-time use theft. You tap her and take someone’s creature, and then she never untaps, clinging to that creature. If she ever goes away or untaps, the stolen creature dies. But at the time, there weren’t really any good ways to untap her. They existed, yes, but they were not good. Compared to Rubinia from Legends, which didn’t destroy the creature but could untap and take a new one, this seems like a step down.

But time has passed, and now there’s a ton of cards that untap your own creature. Hell, there’s a land that does it (shoutout to Minamo). A modern Merieke commander deck is not going to let you keep any creature worth having.

If you see one of these two as a commander, you’re in for either a huge beating, or a slow attrition game, depending. 7/10.

Memelord Potential

And then there’s the other two.

General Jarkeld switches blockers. That’s it. And he’s mono-white, so you don’t really get much access to “OK, I swing with one huge dude with trample and one little dude, hehehe gonna switch your blocks”. It’s an on-board trick, so your opponents can play around it. Anyone playing this guy is here to do shenanigans.

Skeleton Ship is objectively crap. But I can’t deny it. It’s a Skeleton, but not a boat? It only has the Skeleton creature type. Let’s look at the ability. Modern cards have plenty of ways to untap your commander, as stated with Merieke, and also cards that interact with counters on permanents. Is it a bad commander? Eh…there’s plenty of more efficient choices. Is it a fun choice? Yes.

Another important note: this is the first printed Legendary Skeleton, made in 1995. As of this post, there are 5 total Legendary Skeletons (sixth coming extremely soon). The second was printed in 2010, and is such a pox on the format that most playgroups shun anyone who plays it (sorry, Skittles, it’s the truth). So the second reasonable option for playing a Skeleton deck came in 2020. That’s 25 years of Magic history where the only reasonable Skeleton to lead a Skeleton deck was this dopey boat. It took until 2023 to get a Skeleton that was blue and black.

Memelord potential: Skeleton Ship stonks are declining, so we’re down to 3/10. A few years ago, I’d say closer to 7/10 just for the Ship.

Now which one of these awkward misfits am I going to build a deck around next? At least I don’t have a lot of choices, and I’m probably not going to go to the General and save some time. 50/50 odds says it’s gonna be boats. Stay tuned.