Journey into Nyx is finally here, and that means it's time to get hyped. New cards. New brews. All kinds of excitement. We've got a Pro Tour around the corner and two hundred new toys to play with; this week we're going to take a look at what Journey into Nyx has to offer for your favorite formats.
In recent years, we've had a new tradition in the weeks leading up to Pro Tours. Refreshing Tomoharu Saito's Twitter account. This set is no different, as Saito posted 20ish decks, ranging from aggressive Red decks to controlling Blue decks and event touching on some combotastic elements. We'll look at two of those decks today, but the full list can be found here.
[Cardlist Title= Eidolon Enchantress - Journey into Nyx Standard | Tomoharu Saito]
Another week, another take on Eidolon of Blossoms. This card seems fragile in a format with Lifebane Zombie, but this kind of strategy is exciting. It's been awhile since we've seen a deck that tries to go this far over the top with Karametra, Primeval Bounty, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion.
Oddly enough, this deck seems reasonably positioned against the metagame as we saw it last. Ramping into effects like Primeval Bounty is a reasonable approach, especially with both Courser of Kruphix and Sphere of Safety to buy time. The aggressive decks of the format are going to have a tough time breaking out of the Sphere of Safety locks, especially backed by the wombo combo of Karametra plus Primeval Bounty. On the other hand, you've got Blinding Light for Detention Sphere on your critical enchantments, and many control decks rely on attacking with Elspeth tokens to win, which is tough through multiple Sphere of Safetys.
This iteration of this deck may not be a player in a format packed with aggressive Mana Confluence decks, but I really hope that Eidolon of Blossoms finds a home somehwere in this Standard format.
One of the biggest outstanding questions from spoiler season is where does Prophetic Flamespeaker fit in? This card is obviously powerful, but doesn't have an obvious home in one of the top-tier decks from Born of the Gods Standard. Tomoharu Saito may have found the shell to make
We've seen a couple of aggressive Red decks in this vein in Theros Standard formats, but never one quite like this. Instead of leaning on [card]Burning-Tree Emissary" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Prophetic+Flame+Speaker+a+player+in+top-tier+Standard+play%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A%5Bcardlist+title%3D+GR+Aggro+-+Journey+into+Nyx+Standard+%7C+Tomoharu+Saito%5D%0D%0A%5BLands%5D%0D%0A4+Stomping+Ground%0D%0A4+Temple+of+Abandon%0D%0A3+Mutavault%0D%0A2+Gruul+Guildgate%0D%0A4+9+Mountain%0D%0A%5B%2FLands%5D%0D%0A%5BCreatures%5D%0D%0A4+Prophetic+Flamespeaker%0D%0A4+Firedrinker+Satyr%0D%0A4+Rakdos+Cackler%0D%0A4+Ash+Zealot%0D%0A4+Boros+Reckoner%0D%0A4+Mogis%27s+Wardhound%0D%0A4+Ghor-Clan+Rampager%0D%0A%5B%2FCreatures%5D%0D%0A%5BSpells%5D%0D%0A4+Domri+Rade%0D%0A2+Dragon+Mantle%0D%0A4+Lightning+Strike%0D%0A%5B%2FSpells%5D%0D%0A%5B%2FCardlist%5D%0D%0A%0D%0AWe%27ve+seen+a+couple+of+aggressive+Red+decks+in+this+vein+in+%3Cem%3ETheros%3C%2Fem%3E+Standard+formats%2C+but+never+one+quite+like+this.+Instead+of+leaning+on+%5Bcard%5DBurning-Tree+Emissary">Prophetic Flame Speaker a player in top-tier Standard play:
GR Aggro - Journey into Nyx Standard | Tomoharu Saito
We've seen a couple of aggressive Red decks in this vein in Theros Standard formats, but never one quite like this. Instead of leaning on [card]Burning-Tree Emissary for explosive starts, Saito is relying on Prophetic Flamespeaker to give his aggro deck some reach and card advantage.
Not only is Flamespeaker a powerful card advantage engine, Saito has buillt in a number of ways to make sure that his Flamespeaker continues crashing in for damage and cards. Ghor-Clan Rampager represents ten damage with trample. Dragon Mantle provides evasion and Firebreathing. This deck has an absurd amount of reach if the Flamespeaker lives, and if not? You've still got the standard Red deck of aggressive creatures backed by efficient burn spells.
Sometimes we have to go digging to find fun deck lists. Sometimes Travis Woo makes it easy. How many other people do you know who hate Blue enough to maindeck Choke in Modern? Does the strategy have legs? Let's take a look:
[Cardlist Title=Screw You Blue - Journey into Nyx Modern | Travis Woo]
One thing's for sure. This deck is fun. For the person playing it at least. If you're tired of playing against decks like Splinter Twin, Pyromancer Ascension, and Sphinx's Revelation control decks, this might be the deck for you. Sure, you're going to get run over by aggressive decks sometimes. Who cares? Every time your opponent plays an Island, you'll get to make the game as miserable for them as it usually is for you. How good are those Cryptic Commands now? How would you like to have another Island instead of that Celestial Colonnade?
The biggest problem with this deck is that it doesn't do so well against decks that don't need mana on multiple turns. Things like Ad Nauseam and Storm don't need their lands to untap multiple times. Sure, it makes their life easier, but those are decks that are absolutely capable of killing you in one go. Sometimes you can blindside them with a Sea's Claim plus Choke turn, shutting off extra lands, but for the most part, you're going to be leaning on your sideboard to do most of the heavy lifting.
Fortunately, the sideboard can do quite a lot of work in almost all of your bad matchups. Leyline of Sanctity is absurd in your combo matchups, and both Rest in Peace and Stony Silence all but shut off entire decks in the format. You might not have the best game one against non-Blue decks, but your sideboard is ready to pick up the slack.
I think the biggest issue is that this deck gives opponents so much time to find their random outs, like Back to Nature, Tempest of Light, or Fracturing Gust. Unfortunately, those cards do see a reasonable amount of play because of decks like Hexproof. Maybe that means counterspells in the sideboard. Maybe it means a more proactive gameplan with Empyrial Armor. Maybe it means Quicksilver Fountain to give them even more Islands and make it easier to lock them out.
What Journey into Nyx cards have the most to offer in Legacy? Drew Levin tackled the subject and came up with a few exciting brews featuring cards that might not be on your radar, like this deck featuring Disciple of Deceit.
So what can Disciple of Deceit do in Legacy? As long as you can clear the way for him to attack each turn, he's a repeatable tutoring engine, letting you add a reasonable toolbox to your cantrip-laden midrangey Blue deck or tutor up combo pieces in a combo-control deck.
I'm a little surprised that there isn't more removal like Abrupt Decay to force through the Disciple, but I think it certainly shows that there's potential in a repeatable tutoring engine, and that this card could be part of a more midrangey Team America style tempo deck that focuses on attritioning away whatever research is most important.
So, Pharika. When she was first spoiled, she was met mostly with confusion. What exactly did she do? She didn't just make tokens for you, but rather for whichever opponent's graveyard you were attacking. Because you have to attack your own graveyard to get value in a color combination that is basically built around the graveyard, Pharika didn't seem to have an obvious place. That may be changing as players like PROFESSORLABCOAT get more time to come up with powerful interactions that rely on giving your opponents creatures. Let's take a look at his first take on Pharika:
There are a lot of different things happening here, but fundamentally it comes down to taking advantage of Pharika giving your opponents guys. PROFESSORLABCOAT is going deep with cards like Reap, Pygmy Kavu, Compost and even Hunted Troll to make this apparent disadvantage into a huge edge that can be exploited. These are the kinds of awesome, corner case interactions that make Commander decks awesome.
On top of that, there are sweet things you can do when you start exiling your own things. Viridian Longbow lets you grind away at powerful creatures while generating more tokens lets you pull ahead with constellation triggers and letting you get aggressive with Seshiro the Anointed.
This deck also fits in an Enchantress subtheme with the new Eidolon of Blossoms backed by Argothian Enchantress and company. This makes the Grave Pact effects that you're playing generate card advantage on the way down as well as whenever one of your tokens trade up.
This deck has shown me that there's a lot more space to explore in Pharika decks than I thought at first. There are always powerful and interesting things to do with a new Commander. Sometimes they're obvious, and sometimes it comes down to Pygmy Kavu.
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