Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Outmaneuvering a Flying Quandary: Sideboard Tech to Neutralize Wonder
In blue-driven Commander communities, a four-mana flyer with a literary glow can feel almost theatrical—until you realize its real menace lies not on the battlefield, but in the graveyard. Wonder is a clever little Incarnation from Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander (tdc), a card that becomes unexpectedly punishing when you’ve unlocked the Island count and your opponent has a robust graveyard engine running. Its static ability—“As long as this card is in your graveyard and you control an Island, creatures you control have flying”—can tilt the arbiter's chair in a single moment, turning otherwise landlocked boards into sky-scraping threats. That’s why the sideboard, not the main deck, often carries the most decisive tools against it. 🧙♂️🔥💎
Why this matters in practice
Wonder sits in the zone that matters most in Commander: the graveyard. If an opponent has managed to populate their yard and you’ve got an Island or two in play, their board gains a swath of evasive threats that can press for lethal damage. The dynamic becomes a cat-and-mouse game: you want to stop the card from ever making it to the graveyard or, if it does, ensure it can’t grant flying to every creature you field. This is where a tailored sideboard shines. The key is a mix of graveyard hate, temporary disruption, and a few hard counters to stop the graveyard recursion in its tracks. ⚔️🎲
Top sideboard tools to neutralize Wonder
Below is a practical menu of options you can rotate in depending on your meta. Each choice targets the root of Wonder’s threat: the graveyard. Some are universal, some are more niche, but all offer clear paths to keep Wonder from lifting your fliers into the stratosphere. 🧙♂️
- Rest in Peace (White, 3 mana) — A classic, blanket graveyard exile that makes Wonder’s ability moot the moment it lands on the battlefield. In most metagames, RIP buys you a full turn cycle to reestablish control without worrying about a late-graveyard surge.
- Leyline of the Void (Blue/White, 3 mana) — A hate envelope that punishes the graveyard across the board. It’s less fragile than a single-resin piece and can keep Wonder from ever seeing the light of day in the graveyard if you’re able to deploy it early.
- Relic of Progenitus (Colorless, 1 mana, but often in the sideboard) — A compact, resilient answer that exiles cards from all graveyards and can be activated in a pinch. It’s particularly nasty in decks that lean into value from artifacts and want cheap interaction without tipping their own hand.
- Nihil Spellbomb (Colorless, 1 mana) — A flexible graveyard exile on a quick trigger. It’s easy to slot into many color combos and helps you pressure any Wonder-based plan while fueling a potential artifact toolbox later in the game.
- Tormod’s Crypt (Colorless, 0 mana) — A zero-cost, no-frills graveyard exile that’s great for fast metagames or post-board transformations. If Wonder is the primary plan of your opponent, Crypt can slow or sideline the engine without costing a card draw or mana.
- Grafdigger’s Cage (Artifact, 3 mana) — While not a panacea for every Wonder deck, Cage disrupts graveyard recursion and can block certain reanimation lines that would otherwise ferry Wonder or its kin back into play. It’s most potent in a deck that already cares about preventing opponents from using graveyards for value.
When you curate these options, you’re not just looking at a single-card answer. You’re building a layered defense: stop the activation of the graveyard, exile the critical targets, and keep mana-efficient bodies on the board so your opponents can’t leverage flying harbingers without paying a price. And yes, a little meta-awareness goes a long way—if your table loves reanimator shells, you’ll want heavier graveyard hate; if it’s control-and-counter dance, add more generic disruption that also disrupts Wonder’s return-to-graveyard pathway. 🧙♂️🔥
When and how to bring these in
A good rule of thumb is to snowball your sideboard based on your local meta. If you’re facing a single Wonder-heavy deck, bring in a couple of hate pieces and a few flexible artifacts. In a heavier graveyard-reliant field, lean into Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void, and consider a pair of Relics or Nihil Spellbombs for resilience. The aim is not to exhaust your resources but to shift the battlefield’s tempo so that flying becomes a problem your opponent must solve—without giving them a long-term advantage. 💎⚔️
Flavor, design, and the player experience
Rebecca Guay’s art for Wonder captures the moment of a bird’s gaze lifting into the air—the flavor text from Scroll of Beginnings hints at a quiet awe that belies a potentially disruptive battlefield presence. The card’s design sits at an elegant intersection: a solid four-mana blue creature with a modest body (2/2) and a skyward payoff that either blooms into a larger air force or acts as a brittle reminder that graveyard synergy remains one of the trickiest corners of Commander. It’s a perfect example of the “two-layer” design philosophy—what a card does on the battlefield and what it can enable from the graveyard, given the right land prerequisites. The result is a card that thrives in the shadows of your sideboard, where your plan bends the outcome without shouting it from the top of the stack. 🎨🧙♂️
Collector, value, and the broader Commander ecosystem
Wonder sits at an approachable price point for uncommon blue duelists: the card’s listed market price sits modestly around USD 1.56 and EUR 1.19, with a live flavor that makes it a satisfying pickup for nostalgia and synergy fans alike. Its presence in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander adds a layer of cross-set appreciation—an uncommon berth that rewards careful deckbuilding and thoughtful hate packages. In EDH, where repetitive graveyard plays can tilt the table, having a prepared sideboard to handle Wonder is not just prudent—it's essential for a smooth night of multiplayer chaos. 🧙♂️🔥
“The birds rose as the mystery began—an echo of faith, a whisper of risk, and a sky full of decisions we must make.”
For decks that love to play with the shadows of the graveyard while keeping a sharp, blue-flavored line of play, Wonder remains a memorable test case: can you keep your ground while turning the storm of flying threats into a well-timed set of answers? The answer, as any good sideboard understands, is often a well-balanced suite of graveyard disruption, cheap exiles, and the patience to deploy them at the exact moment your opponents least expect it. 🧙♂️🎲
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