Everybody likes to have choices and in a magic the gathering card the ability to have those choices can raise a group of mediocre abilities to something that is quite good. Wizards of the coast have proven this several times by releasing cards which have multiple abilities but you only get to do one, and now they have put out the commands which are similar in idea but allow you to do two typically mid level abilities.

Incendiary command is a rare sorcery from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs two red and three colorless mana to put into play and reads "Choose two - Incendiary Command deals 4 damage to target player; or Incendiary Command deals 2 damage to each creature; or destroy target nonbasic land; or each player discards all the cards in his or her hand, then draws that many cards."

The truth is that most of these abilities you probably wouldn't put into your deck on another card, and you certainly wouldn't pay five mana for any two of them if the choices didn't exist, but the combination of abilities allows you to mix and match for the exact situation that you are in meaning that this card is almost always going to be of some value when it comes into play.

The first of these abilities is in some ways the least impressive. Doing four damage to an opponent is nice of course, but unless they are low on health it is generally a waste of a card, but on this card it is useful because it means that the second choice on the casting of this card is always going to have some value. For example if you really need to get rid of an land an opponent is using you can cast this, and rather than paying five for one effect you can at least do four damage to the opponent.

The second of these is the pyroclasm effect. As someone who has long used Pyroclasm it is hard to overemphasis how useful this ability can be. Not only has it saved me many times, but by combining it with other burn you can often kill larger creatures as well.

Third is the ability to destroy a non-basic land. This is something that you are not likely to use overly often, but when you do it is likely to be very valuable. The reason for this is that it is probably because your opponent is using that land to gain some advantage beyond simple mana, or it is their only source of a specific color and either way it will be valuable when used.

The final is in some ways the most powerful. Often in red you find yourself with an opponent that is nearing the end of his life, but you don't have the right cards in your hand to finish him off. Combining this with the ability to do four damage to the opponent will often allow you to get that last seven to ten damage through.

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