Why are you seeing this as a desperation move? Good times, bad times, companies do promotion to grow at all times, this is nothing out of the ordinary. They want more players playing standard, well duh. There will never be enough playing standard for them.
They don't need to come up with a new concept for the commanders themselves (but a new mechanic or two is almost mandatory). I mean, if they did shards again, people would be interested if the new cards are cool and there are good value cards in the precon decks.
There are also a couple of issues with it potentially being a way around the commander tax.
Not necessarily, it could work like Derevi. After all, suspend can be played around more easily with counters or by simply having at least a turn to prepare.
At first, I thought it was an enchantment. Then I saw it's a creature. Then I saw it's a zombie itself. It just kept getting better and better. This looks like a pretty good card.
A giant Eldrazi.. boar? What is this, a joke? Card is really cool, would have loved it better if it had been a more unwordly creature, or something already huge. But, a boar?
Not necessarily, it could work like Derevi. After all, suspend can be played around more easily with counters or by simply having at least a turn to prepare.
At least give us rigger tribal
Oink oink.
Because AK counts your opp cards as well, and WOTC don't want cards to be able to punish you in an implicit way.