Zendikar Rising: Welcome to the Future of Magic

 

A New Era of Deckbuilding

 So it's the usual - goodbye to four sets, hello to a new one! I haven't been this excited for a magic set in a long time - Zendikar Rising looks great. And that's not all; it looks like a stark shift in magic design philosophy that will rethink how we build decks and more. A large part of this is due to the new "modal double-faced cards". Lands that do something are often popular competitive game pieces - in fact, every constructed format I can think of since I started playing 7 years ago has had multiple - but until now we haven't had lands that are literally also spells before. 

The London Mulligan increased consistency of various strategies in a way that created less "non-games"; Companion gave many decks a guaranteed extra card; and though the power level of these new lands is not that of pre-nerf companion, the effect on consistency is similar to those two examples. However, this consistency increase has one similarity to companion - deckbuilding restrictions. 

 

Aww. (This card is really good, actually)

Except for the five mythic lands, the new half-land half-spells (I will refer to them as spell lands for the rest of time) have the cost of including some number of enters-the-battlefield-tapped lands in your deck. This is not completely free, but I will be including many copies of spell lands in my standard decks this season. In fact, I predict that most of the best decks in Standard will be strategies that can include the most spell lands without it being detrimental to their plan.

The Best Cards in the Set

On to some card analysis! The cards that most excite me in this set mostly do something on both faces, but there are a few other cards that I have a lot to say about. I've built fifty decks with the new cards - if you're not interested in me rambling on about why Agadeem's Awakening is so absurdly good or which colorless mythic is the best, check the adjacent post on this blog and I've got thirty-nine Standard decks, ten Pioneer decks, and one interesting Modern deck for you. 

In no particular order, the stand-out cards for me in this set are:

Any number. The opportunity cost to run this ridiculous sorcery in your deck is incredibly low - you have to play a swamp (without type) that costs 3 life, sometimes, to play as a land. That's it! All of this cycle are incredible and are going to see a tonne of play in Standard (and beyond) but this is the standout. At X=3, this can return Lurrus, Kroxa and Archfiend's Vessel - and it's one of your lands that does that! Think of the deck space saved! Being able to run both more lands and more spells (without needing Yorion) and have a huge increase in agency over your land drops is why these cards are so good - even if some of the effects are slightly below average. And this one definitely isn't - but I'll talk more about it when I talk about the decks I've built around it. 

The biggest issue with this card is the existence of Castle Locthwain in standard - there's some obvious friction there between the two excellent lands, and I think outside of a mono-coloured deck some consideration needs to be taken as to the balance between the two (or if you even want both), but my mono black decks in this standard are starting with four of each. It is, as they say, Free Real Estate.

 

This is NOT Snapcaster Mage. However, this is very good, and in formats where Snapcaster Mage is not legal, I think this card is going to spawn new archetypes while also supplementing old/wilting ones. Take Pioneer, for example - the short-lived Izzet Wizards now has another creature that cheapens Wizard's Lightning! Unfortunately it doesn't copy the faux-bolt, but it can copy Wild Slash (and Shock in Standard/Historic), a host of blue cantrips, and even two-mana spells like Lightning Strike!

I think the place this card shines the most is, unsurprisingly, in Standard. The best interaction with this card is cheap kicked spells, such as Bloodchief's Thirst and Into the Roil (both cards I am really excited to play with but are not worth their own paragraphs). If you're unaware, the copied spell is also kicked, which is going to lead to some blowouts.

It is a shame that the kicker on this card is so expensive, as some of the card quality could have been funneled in a different direction (such as being able to copy slightly bigger spells). However, evaluating this card with its kicker as flavor text still wildly impresses me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 One-mana creatures have come a long way. Goodness, these are powerful. Wayward Guide-Beast is the one I'm less convinced by, but I think it has potential in a landfall aggro deck, which would also include the color-shifted Steppe Lynx known as Akoum Hellhound. We don't have fetch lands in Standard (thank goodness), but Fabled Passage is a nice buffer to allow any landfall deck to get a few extra triggers each game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swarm Shambler requires a little more work to be good, but Conclave Mentor from M21 is an obvious pairing, though foregoing white entirely and just playing an aggressive green deck (with many spell lands) might be the right place for it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archpriest of Iona is one of the best white one-drops ever printed that isn't a slightly seasoned 2/1, and I expect white aggro decks to be a key player in standard, especially while there are a selection of good non-cleric two-drops to pair with this card (which, currently, there are).

Overall, the power of these one-drops cards (along with a huge number of good two-drops) make me think aggro decks are going to be popular for the next few months. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a 2 mana 3/3 when it attacks, and that's the worst case scenario (save it getting killed immediately). A human, a cleric, and +1/+1 counter synergy are all arguments in favour of this card. And those are all different directions you could go in, but what if you went in all of them? I'm a big fan of stretching already-powerful cards to their absolute maximum, and expect this to be no different. It's a shame this isn't a warrior to pair with Archpriest of Iona, but I think I'm okay with two of the best cards in the set being cheap white aggressive clerics. It's about time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't figured out what one is supposed to do with this massive flavour win yet (and I'm not sure it exists yet) - but I've seen plenty of people compare this card to Demonic Tutor, while it's more of a Bring to Light that requires different setup. The theory is ridiculous, and this just needs a particularly good four-drop/set of four-drops to free-cast to be good. Perhaps Winota?

Party is a fantastic mechanic, and achieving full party with good cards is hard in standard without dipping into three colours. If a deck can consistently achieve full party, find a good card to get with Coveted Prize, and still function when those things don't line up, then I think this card might just be a big deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 That's a lot of text. If we ignore the restrictive mana and assume we can deal with that issue (and I believe we can but will talk about that shortly), this is a 4 mana 4/4 that draws a card, which is an above-average rate. On top of that, the three-pronged landfall ability is absurd (though I don't expect the third trigger will happen very often and when it does it'll just be gravy). Uro has shown how good incedental lifegain is against aggro decks, and when this gains 4 -every turn-

If you're lucky, you'll be getting your mana investment back with the second landfall trigger (notably achievable by Fabled Passage Uro in Standard, along with more powerful cards in more powerful formats) will let you take over the game if achieved more than once (as long as you can spend the mana) 

The main issue is the RGWU mana cost. The playable multicoloured lands in standard are the temples (that I'm not keen on outside of absolute necessity), the triomes (UWR and URG fit this card nicely), Fabled Passage (obviously excellent in a four-colour deck) and the new six duals, four of which are within Omnath's colours. Depending what else is in the deck, I believe this manabase can support Omnath nicely - not even touching on Lotus Cobra and its ability to fix for this card perfectly with Fabled Passage.

These fliplands are something special, and a design triumph - so simple, yet so interesting. They are functionally similar to fetchlands in a format with no basic-land-typed duals (i.e. the wonderful year between Khans of Tarkir and Battle for Zendikar's releases) without the graveyard-fuelling or deck-thinning, but will functionally act very similarly. The big plus these have over fetches is not having to include ANY basics of a given type to sneak in an extra colour.

In Zendikar Rising, we have six of these duals. Until we get the other four in Kaldheim, these six duals are going to determine what decks we can play in standard - or, more accurately, playing a two-colour deck without a matching flipland is going to need a lot of justification. Outside of two-colour decks, that will simply run four of their respective flipland (if it exists), some three-colour decks will have access to multiple of these (especially Naya, that gets the full set - more on that later), and it will be differing levels of free to add the third colour. For example, a red-based Jeskai deck gets the Izzet and Boros duals, but access to blue and white mana will be a little harder in that deck.

Additonally, these duals mean cards requiring more than one mana of the same colour are going to be a lot harder to cast in multicoloured decks. This is going to restrict the playability of some cards - for example, I am skeptical of Skyclave Apparition in a two-colour white deck when one of your white duals will want to be another colour half the time; but in the right configuration (or with the right third colour, funnily enough) it could be doable. Skyclave Apparition, by the way, is another card I'm excited for, but despite it being a little souped up, Fiend Hunter/Banisher Priest effects are not something that we are completely alien to.

The fact that Naya gets the green-white, white-red AND red-green fliplands makes me believe a Naya deck, assuming it has the right tools (Winota AND green cards both exist, by the way), has more than just a little potential in the upcoming standard.

Other Treasures

These are just a few of the exciting things Zendikar Rising is bringing to the table! Other cards I am particularly interested in from the set include:

Scourge of the Skyclaves - Particularly in older formats where shock lands are available, I think this faux-death's-shadow is going to find a home somewhere, but am not entirely sure where, at least not yet.

The Three Walkers - All of them are somewhat niche, but they are going to be incredibly powerful when every minutiae is maximised (which is a good sign for planeswalker design in the long term).

Nighthawk Scavenger - I was a lot higher on this card when spoiled than I am now (Vampire Nighthawk is a relic of the past) but it's still very good; treating it as exactly Rogue-typed Vampire Nighthawk is the best way to evaluate it (since it'll roughly be that most of the time) but this is generally better and will pop up in a lot of midrange decks in at least Standard and Pioneer.

Lotus Cobra - A proven powerful card, this card is still good in 2020, but less so in a format without a full set of fetchlands.

Ardent Electromancer - This card has the potential to net mana, which never causes any problems...

The Various Removal Spells in the Set - Bloodchief's Thirst, Feed the Swarm, and more - cheap, efficient removal is going to be both abundant and ubiquitous in Zendikar Rising Standard, and this is going to set a lot of constraints on what you can do in the format.

Roil Eruption - Our "Lightning Strike Variant" for the Standard format, this is clearly excellent (and not just because we don't have anything better).

The Spell Lands - I haven't said enough about these, but will be trying to fit eight or more in every two-or-less-colour deck I build, to help give me agency in my mana development and mitigate flooding. I probably won't end up with eight in all of my decks, but my better decks will have many of these. I can't overstate how big a deal these are going to be for standard; especially those that freely slot into established archetypes (e.g. mono-red aggro decks getting access to multiple good spell lands).

Forsaken Monument - We're a few colorless creatures away from this being an effective strategy in Standard, but "Better Mirari's Wake for Colorless Decks" was not on my bucket list for this set, and I'm keeping an eye on this one, and putting one into my Modern Eldrazi-Tron wishboard immediately.

Thanks for reading! Later today I'll be posting 50 decklists based on Zendikar Rising here (follow me on twitter @Teskeract for more Magic nonsense too), so stay tuned!