Sets [IKO] Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

[Nanonox]

I'm loving all these hybrids.

The cat seems great at supporting small white GY decks. Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants, Sevinne's Reclamation.

Goes well in a deck with Emry, Lurker of the Loch or Goblin Engineer returning Chromatic Star, Mishra's Bauble and Hangarback Walker among others.

Or maybe you want to return Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger every turn!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

We still haven't seen the nightmare squirrel, have we?

Not yet. If I had to guess, I'd say it will probably be the G/W hybrid legendary card since White and Green are both allowed Nightmares in this set. It's also possible that it will be a Mono-Green or Golgari card, but I think WOTC is probably going to try to make it something special for all of the squirrel fans out there and I think making it a companion definitely fits that bill.

 

[Chris Taylor]

You know, he just says permanent. You get priced out of Seal of Doom, but...

 

[TrainmasterGT]

You know, he just says permanent. You get priced out of Seal of Doom, but...

That's nice, and you could always just...


Looks like constellation got a new toy

 

[Brad]

Lurrus has beautiful art and I keep staring at it, but it's way too pushed for me. Bit of a shame, these companions. The Black Cube loves seeing hybrid symbols. The green and the red one are a maybe, but both seem too strong. Then the white and the blue aren't even considerations for me.

Looking forward to seeing the blue mythos, assuming there is one, even though I'm personally unlikely to play it. I'm in love with that cycle (although, red is a bit much). Good one color cards and really good three color cards is an awesome idea.

I kind of like this guy. Solid but not pushed stats. Cool ability that encourages you to draft just a little differently. Not totally convinced it has a place anywhere unless we get more relevant Doran type effects, but I think it's cute.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You can always run the companions with the caveat that their companion ability can't be used.

 

[Brad]

You can always run the companions with the caveat that their companion ability can't be used.

That's not the issue. The UB one is a 6/6 for 6 with a random friend tacked on. That's a lot of value.
WB is a 3/2 lifelink for 3, which is already good. Then, again, it just throws value on top of that and makes it a bit much for me.

 

[Velrun]

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Fuck I thought that was a custom card first lol. That's a kind of cool fling effect right? Feels like a kind of "Burning Vengeance" for sacrifice decks.

Btw, I'm almost intrigued by making a cube with both morph and mutate just to make the most complicated fucking thing ever for newer players. Imaging unmorphing during the attack step to surprise grant the mutant some new keywords?

 

[Velrun]

Fuck I thought that was a custom card first lol. That's a kind of cool fling effect right? Feels like a kind of "Burning Vengeance" for sacrifice decks.

Btw, I'm almost intrigued by making a cube with both morph and mutate just to make the most complicated fucking thing ever for newer players. Imaging unmorphing during the attack step to surprise grant the mutant some new keywords?

I have been thinking the same. My thoughts so far:

A cube with the following:
Transform
Meld
Morph
Augment
Host
Mutate
Eldrazi

In addition I thought about:
0 custom cards
0 custom rules
0 conspiracies
0 planeswalkers
Bad removal spells
Lots of ramp
Auras but no Equipments

The cube would not be drafted but simply shuffled and distributed cards randomly to each player to make the ‘drafting’ section fast. Sort of like Sealed where you normally get 6 booster packs.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Fuck I thought that was a custom card first lol. That's a kind of cool fling effect right? Feels like a kind of "Burning Vengeance" for sacrifice decks.

Btw, I'm almost intrigued by making a cube with both morph and mutate just to make the most complicated fucking thing ever for newer players. Imaging unmorphing during the attack step to surprise grant the mutant some new keywords?

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/c...taterelated_answers_from_the/?sort=confidence

As long as the face down creature is on top, the rest doesn't exist :')

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/c...taterelated_answers_from_the/?sort=confidence

As long as the face down creature is on top, the rest doesn't exist :')

Piss!! Well there goes that idea

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Piss!! Well there goes that idea

Well, you get to choose where the mutated creature goes, just don't put the morph on top. And then you can unmorph it in the middle of combat

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Another Doom Blade variant. This card seems like it could be very good, but only if you have a low density of things that have +1/+1 counters. My cube currently has about 31 cards with counters, although some of them are not things you'd want to remove, but others give counters to the whole team. This card's power level depends on how relevant not being able to hit things with counters ends up being in your environment. I think it's always very good, but it goes from playable to premium in a format with relatively few counters.

 

[Velrun]

“Playable” is where you want Heartless Act to be

In a cube with 0 counters, Heartless Act is lame. It belongs a cube with a counters theme.

Same logic Wizards used when they put it in a set with a counters theme like Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoth.

 

[Peter LaCara]

This is kinda sexy, huh? Hits a lot of different notes.

 

[ravnic]

Damn power creep has never been realer than in Ikoria. A splashable 3/3 for 3 with a huuuge upside? I'd cube it maybe as a 3/1 or at 1WW.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

As if GW didn't have enough solid three drops! I'm glad I cut that color combination from my cube!



This is a combat trick I can get behind! Pumps by two, protects two targets from a Wrath or combat damage. There's definitely some blowout potential here!

 

[Brad]

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Ok so some dorky speculations regarding the draft themes for the pairs based on the multicolors spoiled so far:

- Flying tribal
- Flash tribal
- Menace tribal
- Trample tribal
- Vigilance tribal

- Human tribal
- Self mill recursion
- Ramp / (extra focus on) Mutate
- Spells matter / (extra focus on) Mutate
- Cycling matters

Any takers regarding this?? I think it looks pretty sweet.

 

[Brad]

I like this! It's a solid 5/5 for 5 and the ability is interesting, unique, and rewards deck building. That said, this probably goes into a greedy 5 color green deck, which you may want to be careful about encouraging. It could easily tap for 3 mana in a shard/wedge based cube.

I did have an old outline of a Naya "more colors matters" deck with things like this and Faeburrow Elder. Hmm... Makes me wanna slam down a Bringer or pay for half a Progenitus.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, that's going in my cube alright. Ramp into t4 this into t5 ZACAMA, PRIMAL CALAMITY seems sweet

 

[Velrun]

The wedge ultimatums have been spoiled as well. Everything TrainMaster shared with us became true.

Yet he got yelled at for spoiling fake cards on MTG Salvation.

A big hurrah for Train from me! Long live the king of trains!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

The wedge ultimatums have been spoiled as well. Everything TrainMaster shared with us became true.

Yet he got yelled at for spoiling fake cards on MTG Salvation.

A big hurrah for Train from me! Long live the king of trains!

To be fair, the Abzan Commander deck that was spoiled early in the season was fake. It had an ultimatum in there, probably because the person who made the foil saw the other spoiler that predicted 5 wedge ultimatums, but it was definitely the wrong ultimatum. That leak on March the 9th was legit though. (https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/ikoria-inquiry.3104/page-2#post-89936). We have wedge lands with three land types to look forward too. That's going to be a shoe in for my cube, helped out by a few customs for the shard ones

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh shit, and the Narset Train spoiled was also almost correct. In reality it's better, because the first ability also gains you 2 life!