Vren, the Relentless is a new Dimir Commander appearing in the Bloomburrow set. This Legendary Rogue will provide a significant boost to the Rat archetype, which has always been a favorite among MTG players thanks to swarming cards like Rat Colony and Relentless Rats.
Bloomburrow’s official spoiler season has revealed a whole host of powerful new Commanders to take charge of the set’s varied animal factions. From Frog Druids to Bat Clerics, Bloomburrow is marrying classic fantasy RPG archetypes to its wide variety of woodland warriors, and now it’s time for Rat Rogues to take center stage.
Vren, the Relentless is a 3/4 Creature that can be cast for 2UB. This Rat Creature is not as aggressive as some other Rogues within MTG, focusing less on combat tricks and more on removing opponents’ forces and building up a swarm of your own.
Vren comes with in-built protection through Ward 2, which will serve to dissuade opponents from spending removal on this Commander too early in the game. This should allow you to start building up your board so that by the time other players realize they should have taken Vren out, it’s already too late to stop you from running away with the win.
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This card is an excellent way to shut down decks that focus on graveyard interaction and recursion, as while Vren, the Relentless is on the field, opponents’ Creatures are exiled when they die.
As well as preventing Golgari decks and others from returning their best permanents from the grave, Vren’s exile effect serves to power its final ability. During each player’s end step – not just your own – this card will create a number of 1/1 Rats equal to the number of opponents’ Creatures that were exiled this turn.
While this effect alone would be enough to build up a small army of tokens, Vren, the Relentless brings back some of MTG’s best effects for Rats. Each of these token Rats gains +1/+1 for each other Rat Creature you control, quickly growing into titanic threats that opponents will struggle to block.
Rats are shaping up to be one of the most exciting Creature factions in Bloomburrow, thanks to powerful new cards and the archetype’s existing support from Magic: The Gathering’s history.