I'm not sure Varina could ever be truly competitive, but if you feel like playing with Surveil cards and want a commander that might work well with them, I think Varina is an interesting option to build around
You had watercolors, the sorts of things that looked like they were from magazine graphics, and painterly pictures. The problem, of course, is that Garfield and his colleagues at Wizards of the Coast were trying to create a cohesive world, which ultimately made his initial hands-off approach untenable
And that's the worst-case scenario, in a 4-player game this could easily be a three for one that leaves you the Human Druid
You can fetch it with Pokeball, and just one copy can give your deck a way to counter a powerful Pokemon
Wiping without a rebuild plan
Through this, you can get discard cards like Basking Rootwalla, trigging Madness, effectively casting it for free