Voja: Behold... a Bastard

    Returning to Ravnica for the latest set, "Murders at Karlov Manor," brought with it one of the most controversial commanders of the year: Voja, Jaws of the Conclave. Around March 12th of this year, Murph from the Command Zone tweeted, “Wizards has been doing an amazing job designing legends the past couple of years, but wow does Voja feel like one of the first major mistakes in a while. This card is absolutely miserable to play against.” This sparked a MASSIVE debate online on whether or not Voja was a miserable experience, too pushed, etc. It should be noted Voja also had an extremely strong showing on the "Murders at Karlov Manor" Game Knights episode. But is all this hate really justified? Today, we’ll take a look at the card, deck strategy, and other cards that have come out in the last year and decide.

    First up, here is the card itself. Lots of words here, including three relevant keywords: Vigilance, Trample, and Ward 3. This is going to make Voja able to stay up as a blocker, become difficult to block effectively, and also less likely to be spot removed. The main concern with the deck comes with the second ability. For each elf you control when Voja attacks, you grow the power of your army and each wolf brings additional card draw. So at its core, this five mana value creature has evasion, protection, card draw, and enhancement all at the same time. The only thing it doesn’t have going for it is independence. If this is your only creature in play, it is a 5/5 without haste that will draw you one card per turn when it attacks that is hard to remove. Unfortunately for the opponents of this deck, there are a lot of elves and wolves in Magic to choose from.

    This deck at its core usually wants to get a balance of wolves and elves into play in order to take advantage of both effects to their fullest potential. Cards like changelings are going to be especially good because they will count as both an elf and wolf for the ability. Being in the colors of Naya (Red, Green, White) gives this deck access to the best protection spells in the game like Heroic Intervention and Teferi’s protection that will help keep the board state together for longer. Elves are also excellent at producing mana to help capitalize on all the extra cards you draw which, as elves are known to do, allows the deck to steamroll out of control very quickly. This deck strategy may not be suitable for a lower power casual environment or a neglectful casual pod that runs less removal than they probably should, but the deck does fold fairly quickly to a spell like Cyclonic Rift or Farewell. But to really get a gauge on where this deck is, let’s look at some other typical decks that elves have at their disposal and also what other legends have been printed in the last 12 months to compare.

    As far as wolf themed decks go, Voja is far and away the best and I don’t think it is close as wolves have been a somewhat neglected tribe for a long time and further taken from to produce werewolf cards. Elves, however, have some interesting options. First up we have the Mono-green Marwyn the Nurturer. Marwyn gets bigger every single time an elf comes into play and wants to hit the board as early as possible. A bit of a glass cannon, it is not uncommon to see a Marwyn deck go for a win consistently around turn five or six and possibly sooner if an opening hand is particularly strong. Because of the pure speed and consistency, I think Marwyn is a better elf commander than Voja. I do believe that Voja is a stronger commander than Lathril, Blade of the Elves. The colors as well as card advantage put it over the top. So Voja is essentially an upper-tier elf tribal commander that permits Naya colors. That can be very strong, but not broken all by itself. Let’s look at other commanders that have come out in the past 12 months not even including universes beyond commanders.

    Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin: Still used in tournaments for cEDH, this Rakdos card Advantage machine is an absolute powerhouse. He is way too fast for Voja and I think Voja would have a hard time keeping creatures alive at the lower power levels.

    Atraxa, Grand Unifier: Wildly powerful commander as a blink deck, generic good stuff, and the current premier food chain deck in cEDH. This commander is significantly stronger than Voja.

    Narset Enlightened Exile: A big shoutout to Kai Powell here, Narset has become a niche storm/ breach cEDH deck. It also is very effective in traditional edh and high power alike as the latest Jeskai spellslinger deck. With the right matchup, I think the Narset deck is capable of beating Voja.

    Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines: Elesh Norn came on the scene with March of the Machine. Elesh norn is an excellent blink deck that also has the added bonus of shutting off opposing blink and landfall decks. Though not viable in cEDH though it has been tried, Elesh Norn mother of machines is definitely in between due to the extremely high rates of removal. There were calls for this card to be banned as soon as it was spoiled. It also was featured on game knights being piloted by Jimmy Wong with one of the most dominant performances in the show’s history. I think the decks of Elesh Norn are well suited to deal with Voja.

    Judith, Carnage Connoisseur- Probably one of the more annoying creatures to come out as of late, Judith gives all her instants deathtouch and lifelink, which makes it incredibly difficult to keep anything close to a creature boardstate. This deck is about as close to kryptonite for Voja as you can get.

 

    Anzrag, Quake Mole: Another Ravnican addition to the list, Anzrag was also from Murders at Karlov Manor. The forced blocking effect in addition to the extra combat can lead to absolutely devastating turns, especially if Angraz had indestructible and trample. As strong as this commander is, the deck folds to Voja as the amount of creatures that are going to get in unblocked.

    Rowan, Scion of War: One of the more experimental cEDH decks, Rowan is a solid glass cannon commander that can have very explosive turns. More suited for high power, but Rowan can hang with Voja.

    Talion, Kindly Lord: A newer card for the control side of cEDH and commander at large, this deck is a card drawing machine ticking opponent’s life totals down while they are at it. The evasion combined with the amount of removal this deck has, it would be difficult for the Voja player to untap with a Voja that can attack and take advantage. Edge, Talion.

    Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth: The head of a very impressive mono-green stompy deck, enhancing the power of this commander leads to bomb after bomb hitting the field every single turn until everyone gets stomped out. I don’t think it is as strong as Voja, but the list could be debated.

    Shalai and Hallar: This Legendary creature has become a very solid stax/combo deck as the win conditions are not affected by traditional stax pieces. It is also useful in casual commander, though most people would rather use Brightpalm and put Shallai and Hallar in the 99 to make their deck a little less strong. Voja would beat Shallai and Hallar at the lower power level games and would lose more often as the power levels moved toward cEDH.

    So to conclude, is Voja so terribly broken that it should be banned? I don’t think so. Is the Ward 3 effect annoying? Absolutely. As of late, legendary creatures that are of a higher mana value are being provided extra levels of protection to prevent simple removal taking out key pieces easily. One complaint that I think is somewhat valid is that it essentially builds the deck for you. I understand that a lot of players don’t like that Wizards provide all the answers without any work for them, but some players need that extra support especially starting out. We’ll be exploring this more on an upcoming episode of The Thought Vessel Show on spotify. In the end I think the hype will die out on Voja and it will be another commander that is a kill on sight but you won’t see very often. 

    Thank you for reading! If you have a topic you would like to see covered on the blog or our podcast, The Thought Vessel Show on Spotify, send us an email to thoughtvesselshow@gmail.com.