Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has been going absolutely bananas with the powerful cards in recent sets. Oko, Thief of Crowns was a flat-out mistake, but plenty of other cards in the last year or two have pushed the envelope on the traditional power curve, to say the least.
With the companion mechanic, WotC brought Commander into competitive play, with all the consistency boosts that entails, and with a number of other powerful cards they have truly dialed down the importance of small card advantage battles in favor of splashy, swingy effects.
When everything is a two-for-one, simple card draw spells start looking less exciting. Every color now has access to powerful effects that gain cards while also impacting the battlefield. Among all the hyped-up flagship cards in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, the one that’s most interesting as a way to keep applying pressure while gaining card advantage is undoubtedly Call of the Death-Dweller.
Let’s break down this busted card:
It reanimates two creatures, with combined converted mana cost three or less, and gives out deathtouch and menace to boot. This is unprecedented for three mana. The number of powerful synergies spans Modern and Pioneer, though of course Standard Rakdos is rightfully ready for its own power-up.
Call of the Death-Dweller looks good in Rakdos Sacrifice in Standard; Rakdos Midrange in Pioneer (Goblin Chainwhirler, anyone?); and even various Death’s Shadow and Devoted Druid lists in Modern (oh, does it ever look great with Death’s Shadow in Modern). There’s a chance that it could even bring about new archetypes and revitalize long-dormant ones. Even Legacy has the potential to leverage this card in small amounts. As if new sets weren’t already shaking up formats with their flagship cards, now it seems like a half-dozen or more new printings come out every month that change formats immediately and dramatically.
For Standard, there’s almost no chance that Call of the Death-Dweller doesn’t make it into the nascent Rakdos Sacrifice archetype, not only as a great way to reanimate things like Mire Triton; Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger; and Cauldron Familiar for value but also as a way to get back Mayhem Devil and turn it into a killing machine. Oh yes, giving Mayhem Devil deathtouch is absolutely delightful, and it will exert a major influence on Standard going forward.
Creatures (23)
- 1 Midnight Reaper
- 3 Priest of Forgotten Gods
- 4 Mayhem Devil
- 4 Cauldron Familiar
- 3 Woe Strider
- 4 Mire Triton
- 4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
Lands (19)
Spells (18)
Now, there is (of course) a chance that we end up playing with Fiend Artisan, or even generating a whole new deck that also incorporates the unprecedented Lurrus of the Dream-Den, which would make it impossible to play our three-mana creatures but would open up new angles and a virtual eight-card opening hand.
Losing Mayhem Devil is a big dent in our gameplan, though, as the big joy of casting Call of the Death-Dweller is in getting a powerful way to control an entire battlefield by giving that monster deathtouch. It’s just not the same looping value creatures if you aren’t also taking out an opponent’s whole game in the process.
Extending that logic to Pioneer, Goblin Chainwhirler looks awfully good as a Plague Wind with Call of the Death-Dweller. A 3/3 with menace, first strike, and deathtouch is practically unblockable, but it also sweeps the opponent’s battlefield in the meantime. Pioneer is a place with truly broken decks at the moment, but if Dig Through Time or Thassa’s Oracle were to get banned, we might be able to pick up this deck and run it up for some wins. If Llanowar Elves comes back in style, Goblin Chainwhirler is ready to run over the format with the following:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Forge Devil
- 4 Bomat Courier
- 3 Soul-Scar Mage
- 4 Goblin Chainwhirler
- 4 Bonecrusher Giant
- 4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
Lands (17)
Spells (20)
I’ve been a fan of Rakdos Vehicles in Pioneer for quite some time, and if it weren’t for the incredible cards unleashed on the format in the last three sets, I’d be happy to go back to them. Depending on what gets banned in the future, Call of the Death-Dweller might be powerful enough to justify picking the deck back up and trying again.
Forge Devil is like a miniature Chainwhirler that works well as a reanimation target for Call of the Death-Dweller alongside a random Kroxa or Bomat Courier. After all, giving Forge Devil deathtouch and Bomat Courier menace is quite a nice little package of synergy. They keep digging you to more powerful spells and keep the opponent’s battlefield clear. What’s not to love?
There’s also a rumbling around Kethis Combo coming back in style now, and the ability to bring back multiple combo pieces is quite tempting. Check out the following:
Creatures (23)
- 2 Hope of Ghirapur
- 4 Diligent Excavator
- 4 Lazav, the Multifarious
- 4 Kethis, the Hidden Hand
- 3 Gilded Goose
- 4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
- 2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (21)
Spells (11)
Kethis Combo is one of the most intricate decks in Magic. You have to balance your counts of legendary cards, enablers, mana fixers, and redundancy. It’s no easy feat. But getting to bring back multiple parts of the combo for one card is exactly what you want for redundancy. It just stinks that the card relies on the graveyard, which is already a weak point for Kethis Combo. Leyline of the Void can be a true pain with Kethis, and it’s tough to bring in more nonlegendary cards to answer graveyard hate properly.
More interesting, though, is in Modern, where Call of the Death-Dweller can reanimate the most powerful one-drop of them all: Death’s Shadow.
We all know how much Death’s Shadow means around these parts, and in Grixis Death’s Shadow, you can even use Snapcaster Mage to keep the goods flowing. Replacing one or two cards with Call of the Death-Dweller might be well worth it.
Creatures (16)
Lands (16)
Spells (29)
Additionally, one could choose to play with Call and the new Lurrus of the Dream-Den companion, which would add an extra card to your starting hand at the cost of being unable to use Street Wraith or Gurmag Angler. That’s quite the cost, but there are alternatives. With no Street Wraith, it becomes more necessary to have access to a repeatable source of life loss. Well, what about Jund Death’s Shadow with all of the above? You can still play with Wrenn and Six!
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (19)
Spells (30)
There’s a lot going on here, including a gameplan against Dredge that involves looping Lurrus and Nihil Spellbomb every turn and the joy of Wrenn and Six being a preposterous two-mana permanent that should almost certainly cost three. But Jund Death’s Shadow with Kroxa and Lurrus and the powerful Call of the Death-Dweller to bring them back for more excitement is near the top of my personal Modern to-do list.
Then, of course, there’s the more all-in version of Death’s Shadow, closer to Infect than a midrange deck, and Call of the Death-Dweller looks pristine there as well. Check it out:
Creatures (18)
Lands (18)
Spells (24)
Call brings back two creatures with surprising regularity here and offers much-needed evasion for big Death’s Shadows or Tarmogoyfs. A Dreadhorde Arcanist can even pick up a Mutagenic Growth and cast a Call from the graveyard for insane value and immense pressure. You could lose the Street Wraiths and try to incorporate Lurrus in this deck as well. It’s quite exciting!
Incidentally, “It’s quite exciting” could be the tagline for Magic right now. There are a lot of longstanding paradigms being tossed away with these new printings, and even if it is a bit power-creeped, there’s no denying that it’s exciting and uncharted. New restrictions on deckbuilding and new power that comes along with it will make for a truly unprecedented game. There are always new things to think about with Magic, though sometimes they’re so far outside the box that we have a hard time stitching them together with our expectations from past experience.
Different could be good, with new angles to gameplay and new ways to think about what matters in and outside of the games themselves. Different could be bad, with power creep that necessitates aggressive bans and a reduction in consumer confidence. But different is always exciting, and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths brings the excitement for sure.