Sometimes a card is adopted by one deck, and it takes some time before other uses of the card are fully explored. It may seem that, at first, the card works best in that one deck, and there is no reason to try and place the card in another deck. While such a card may work well in its original setting, there may be other uses for it, uses which may improve the decks that choose to add this card to their designs. Many cards that are used by a wide variety of decks do not really fall into this category. Cards like Tarmogoyf, Force of Will, and Swords to Plowshares see play in many decks, and it did not take much time to realize that they could be an important part of many decks. Other cards take longer to incorporate into multiple decks, because they are narrower and not so easily placed. Entomb and Knight of the Reliquary are two of the most recent examples of such cards.
The unbanning of Entomb last fall opened up a design possibility that new decks (or existing Legacy decks) would be able to take advantage of. It is a one-mana instant speed tutor for any card, but that card ends up in the graveyard. The first widely successful use of Entomb was in the modern Reanimator decks. Entomb makes this deck incredibly powerful because it tutors for the reanimation target and places it exactly where it needs to be. Only a reanimation spell (usually Reanimate or Exhume) is needed to complete the combo. This makes Legacy Reanimator a two-card combo, and a difficult deck to defeat.
Without Entomb, this deck did not really exist. There were earlier versions of the deck, but they had to both find the creature and put it into the graveyard. This was not easy, as cards like Careful Study and Buried Alive do similar things but they are either not as reliable or cost more than Entomb. It simply gave the deck everything it wanted in just one card. The power of Entomb in Reanimator is self-evident, and its inclusion in the deck does not require a stretch of the imagination.
A one-mana instant speed tutor should help any deck that can make use of a card from its graveyard. Another deck that has made use of Entomb is the 43 Land deck (sometimes just referred to as Lands). Instead of using Entomb to enable a two-card combo, 43 Land uses it to tutor for Life from the Loam. If the 43 Land player already has Life from the Loam in hand, then it can tutor for any of its lands. Either way, the card tutors for nearly seventy-five percent of the deck. Entomb’s inclusion in this deck may not be as obvious as in something like Reanimator, but it provides the deck with a tutor that works within the framework of its existing design.
Here is a 43 Land decklist that includes Entomb –
Lands (40)
- 2 Wooded Foothills
- 2 Treetop Village
- 4 Wasteland
- 4 Mishra's Factory
- 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
- 3 Taiga
- 3 Bayou
- 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
- 1 Barbarian Ring
- 1 Windswept Heath
- 4 Maze of Ith
- 2 Tranquil Thicket
- 1 Glacial Chasm
- 4 Rishadan Port
- 1 Ghost Quarter
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 1 Gargoyle Castle
- 1 Kabira Crossroads
- 1 Misty Rainforest
- 1 Verdant Catacombs
Spells (20)
Another deck that could potentially make use of Entomb is Ichorid. This is a deck that works almost completely out of its graveyard. Entomb is both a tutor and discard outlet in this deck. One of the most obvious applications is to search for a Golgari Grave-Troll and on the next turn to dredge six cards. This means the deck will effectively run more dredgers, and it will essentially be running four more Golgari Grave-Trolls as it is the dredge card that it would tutor for.
The ability to tutor for a dredger is an important, but it’s only the beginning of the story. If a creature is needed, Ichorid can be tutored for and brought back next turn. Entombing for Narcomeoba actually puts it directly into play, as it will hit the graveyard from the library and its trigger will cause it to enter play. This can be important if the deck has dredged multiple Bridge from Belows into the graveyard, but has found no creatures. Narcomeoba can be used to cast Cabal Therapy or Dread Return. If Narcomeobas have come into play but there are no Bridge from Belows or Dread Returns, then either of those cards can be tutored for. If the deck needs disruption against a combo deck, it can tutor for Cabal Therapy. The deck can even accelerate its own gameplan by entombing for Deep Analysis and then flashing it back. The uses for Entomb in Ichorid are numerous, and it seems to make the deck more consistent by allowing it tutor directly for whatever is missing from its graveyard.
Reanimator is an example of a deck that has already benefited from the addition. 43 Land and Ichorid have made some use of the card, but future designs may refine the use of Entomb by these decks. These decks merely illustrate the power of Entomb, and its ability to be used in different decks.
Knight of the Reliquary, with a three-mana casting cost and multiple color requirements, is quite expensive by Legacy standards. Despite its high casting cost, it has the ability to tutor for any land card and at the same time to increase its size as it does so. The high casting cost may be acceptable in the appropriate deck because Knight can become larger than most Legacy creatures, and its ability to tutor for lands like Wasteland makes it invaluable.
The card saw some initial play in Zoo and Aggro Loam decks, but its power was not really exploited until it saw play in New Horizons. New Horizons uses this card to fetch Wastelands, fetchlands, and Horizon Canopy. This tutoring not only allows the deck to find a specific land, but it increases its own size along with the size of the Terravores that are also in the deck. In this deck, Knights and Terravores are usually an extremely large, and they can usually end the game in one or two turns. (More information about New Horizons can be found here).
Knight of the Reliquary is an excellent fit for a deck that was built around it, like New Horizons, but it has started to see some other play as well. Recently, Natural Order CounterTop decks have also started using him. While these decks generally do not use Wastelands or Horizon Canopies, they can trade one land for another, and in the process make their creature lethal within just a few turns. The ability to accelerate the win condition in a deck by several turns is a significant improvement. The creature is also an excellent defender that can take down most creatures in Legacy. In these decks, Knight can also be sacrificed to play a Natural Order and put Progenitus into play, but this play may not be very common, as a Knight is often large enough to finish off an opponent within almost the same time frame. Knight also allows the deck to shuffle for Sensei’s Divining Top or a Counterbalance trigger.
Here is a recent Natural Order CounterTop deck list with Knight of the Reliquary –
Creatures (11)
Lands (16)
Spells (33)
- 4 Sensei's Divining Top
- 4 Brainstorm
- 1 Forest
- 4 Force of Will
- 4 Swords to Plowshares
- 1 Island
- 3 Natural Order
- 4 Daze
- 4 Counterbalance
- 4 Ponder
Sideboard
Finally, another deck that might make excellent use of Knight of the Reliquary is Stax. It has such great synergy with the deck in so many ways. The casting of Knight followed by an Armageddon makes him incredibly large, and leaves your opponent with no mana to combat him. Its ability to tutor up Wasteland to keep an opponent pinned on virtually no mana supports the mana denial strategy of the deck. Tutoring for Horizon Canopy can allow the deck to draw an extra card. All of these uses are made repeatable by Crucible of Worlds. In addition to all of these uses, the deck can run one of lands that work only in specific cases like Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Kor Haven, or Maze of Ith.
Knight size is also important because it can end the game in just a few swings, which is a significant improvement for Stax. There are many games in which Stax will have the opponent in a difficult position, but it will not be able to defeat them before they recover. This should happen less often with Knight of the Reliquary, because he can win the game so quickly. Knight’s size will be an asset on defense as well, where it will be take down attacking creatures.
New Horizons, CounterTop, and Stax may just be the start of the decks that can incorporate Knight of the Reliquary into their designs. There is no reason to believe that this is an exhaustive list. Any deck that can make use of tutoring for specific lands, and would like to have an incredibly large creature, should consider Knight of the Reliquary. Its power has just begun to be harnessed.
The reuse of cards like Entomb and Knight of the Reliquary were neither immediate nor as obvious as other more widely used cards, but with some time and specific development, these very powerful cards are starting to see play outside of their original designs. The fact that they cannot easily work in virtually every deck means that their incorporation will take some creative work, but their power is well worth the effort, as these decks illustrate.