I don’t care what the rest of the spoiled cards say—the following will be the most important card in Standard going forward.
This is a big deal.
Like a really big deal!
Part of the reason why decks like Mono-Black Devotion have done so well is because it was just too clunky for a lot of other decks to go into a third or in some cases even a second color. You’d have to sacrifice some form of board pacing in your early game to do it, and Thoughtseize punishes that each and every time. Want white in your Mono-Blue Devotion deck? Those double scry land draws are going to happen. The red in G/R Monsters? Those basic Mountains are a pain to deal with. Even some of the lesser played decks like white-based aggro are in for a real treat with this.
Really like the switcheroo with Mana Confluence. Make the mana bad so Theros cards shine, then power up the old cards late in the season.
— Ari Lax (@armlx) April 11, 2014
And I couldn’t have said it better myself.
It’s time to forget everything you know about building in Standard. Throw it all out the window. Mana Confluence breaks deckbuilding wide open now. It completely strips the restrictions off of how we tackled the format in the past. We’re free to flesh out everything that we’ve wanted to do for the past few months all because of this land. It’s just as important if not more important than the Temples are to deckbuilding.
Don’t believe me?
Creatures (21)
- 2 Prime Speaker Zegana
- 1 Master Biomancer
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 3 Polukranos, World Eater
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 2 Prophet of Kruphix
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (25)
Spells (7)
Creatures (29)
- 4 Judge's Familiar
- 4 Frostburn Weird
- 4 Cloudfin Raptor
- 4 Nightveil Specter
- 4 Tidebinder Mage
- 4 Thassa, God of the Sea
- 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
- 4 Master of Waves
Lands (25)
Spells (6)
Sideboard
Creatures (26)
- 4 Ash Zealot
- 4 Frostburn Weird
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
- 4 Stormbreath Dragon
- 4 Fanatic of Mogis
Lands (25)
Spells (9)
Sideboard
You should have seen my face when I saw this card. I literally jumped around my room in excitement and immediately started brewing. I don’t even really care just how tuned things are right now, which is sort of contrary to what I said at the beginning of the article. The truth is that it’s very hard to really put a place on any deck built at the moment because we simply don’t know the rest of the set. Everything is a prototype, so the sole purpose of these decks is to demonstrate just how far you can branch out with existing ideas and templates.
The two-color Gods get the biggest benefit from this card being in the format. Before Xenagos, God of Revels was the premier two-color God because of how seamless it was to fit into G/R strategies. It didn’t really require any extra work outside of what the deck was trying to do, and the mana in the deck was just good enough. Now the mana for every God is good enough, and if things line up like they did for Xenagos, then you can expect a whole lot of snowball effects leading to some heavy hitting. Spike Jester decks will be more likely to have black and red on turn 2, which makes things way easier for a future Mogis, God of Slaughter. Iroas, God of Victory has a similar story but with Ash Zealot in red, Precinct Captain in white, and Akroan Hoplite and Sunhome Guildmage in both.
Speaking of two-color Gods, the one that has me most excited so far is Kruphix, God of Horizons.
Mark my words, Kruphix will see Constructed play before the end of the year.
Yeah, I just said that.
Obviously Kruphix works best with spells that have X in their converted mana cost. Sphinx’s Revelation is number one in this department, and Kruphix really pushes it beyond anything we’ve seen save Elixir of Immortality. Clan Defiance, Biomass Mutation, Cyclonic Rift, Mistcutter Hydra, Gaze of Granite, and Syncopate are very high on the list of cards that are fine by themselves but busted with Kruphix.
Creatures (31)
- 4 Burning-Tree Emissary
- 4 Experiment One
- 4 Elvish Mystic
- 4 Kalonian Tusker
- 3 Polukranos, World Eater
- 2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
- 4 Boon Satyr
- 4 Kiora's Follower
- 2 Kruphix, God of Horizons
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (22)
Spells (5)
Sideboard
Creatures (20)
- 4 Frostburn Weird
- 4 Sylvan Caryatid
- 2 Master of Waves
- 4 Kiora's Follower
- 4 Courser of Kruphix
- 2 Kruphix, God of Horizons
Planeswalkers (9)
Lands (24)
Spells (7)
While these cards are obviously great, it’d be foolish to assume that paying one life per use is no real cost. When I played R/W Burn at the Season One Invitational, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that players were playing eight additional shock lands to gain an edge in their respective mirrors. Mana Confluence compounds this problem big time, and the more players play this card, the more hyperaggressive strategies will punish them for it.
The Gods are also contributors to this. You can’t just go jamming Gods everywhere without developing a solid game plan against fast aggro before their preferred turn. Almost none of the Gods have an immediate defensive impact the turn they come down unless you already have devotion, and even if you do aggro decks aren’t short of ways of breaking that up and pushing further. Firefist Striker; Ghor-Clan Rampager; Iroas, God of Victory; Frontline Medic; Thassa, God of the Sea; Boros Reckoner; Chandra, Pyromaster; Eidolon of Great Revels; and Herald of Torment are all examples of this.
These are the reasons why I want to stick with cards like Courser of Kruphix and Sphinx’s Revelation in conjunction with Mana Confluence. You need a way to keep your life total in a maintainable state. If you’re going to go deep, you better have a plan to get out of the water if it gets too hot!
Burning Earth in particular is a card I want to keep my eye on for the remainder of this season, as it’s yet another card that punishes greedy, ambitious, or pushed mana bases. In this case, however, it attacks from an angle that’s unbelievably difficult to prepare for, especially in game 1. Decks like Big Red at the tail end of last season utilized Burning Earth in the maindeck to great effect, and most of the tools are still there this time around. Eidolon of the Great Revel is one of the bigger additions to this newfound edge for red mages and combined with Burning Earth puts serious constraints on what you can do, and you need to be prepared for both. Detention Sphere is further stressed, so maybe more copies of Last Breath are in order.
Speaking of good white spells, have you seen Atheros?!
I’m all about this God! Three mana is already a strong starting point, but Supreme Verdict resistance being added to the already sturdy B/W deck at such a little cost is unreal. It’s also super easy to turn on due to Obzedat, Ghost Council; Blood Baron of Vizkopa; Xathrid Necromancer; Whip of Erebos . . .
Oh man, Whip of freaking Erebos!
Sorry, I’m still having a hard time believing that this God is real.
Can we build around Atheros or do we just want it in our deck for value? Do we stop at just two colors or can we get more use out of things like Voice of Resurgence? Does it have a place in Modern Birthing Pod decks?
What cards in Journey into Nyx are you excited for? What decks do you think get better or worse? This looks to be a very promising Constructed season, and I for one am pretty hyped.