With the new block officially released today, we are taking a look at a second set of featured cards that I find beneficial outside of the Standard format. I love me some dinosaurs, but with these cards, I’m looking to supplement some EDH where the dinos just aren’t going to fit. I’ve been salivating to put a couple of these into my decks that are already built, so let’s take a look!
Wily Goblin
I will forever hold in high esteem any card outside of green that helps in the mana department, but especially finding something helpful in red just makes me excited. There are a lot of cards in this set that produce Treasure Tokens, which help with mana ramping and fixing, but Wily Goblin is one of the better options because of his mana cost and initial color. Even if the double-red CMC scares you for the sake of mana fixing in a multi-colored deck, he’s still useful for placing some mana on the field. This is unusual, because red’s mana ramp tends to be temporary for one turn. I like the little guy for making some otherwise useless big spells in red possibly playable.
Tilonalli’s Skinshifter
This guy looks like a great supplement in any creature-heavy deck, but especially fun in EDH. For 3 mana, being able to “clone” Blightsteel Colossus every attack phase sounds pretty powerful to me. The “nonlegendary” drawback can be significant in EDH, but, as I mentioned with the Colossus, there are plenty of other options for Skinshifter. Its use on Standard dinos alone can be a major benefit.
Tishana, Voice of Thunder
Tishana offers a lot on one card, but is a unique blend of two common Magic strategies: field presence and hand size. I just so happen to already have a blue/green draw deck that focuses on creatures to be the engine and beneficiaries. This card fits right in. It combines particularly well with Chasm Skulker, if the deck is already inclined to draw. Chasm Skulker is able to easily produce a big number of creature tokens to trigger Tishana’s draw ability, which in turn could trigger another Chasm Skulker’s draw ability.
Sunbird’s Invocation
Although the two cards have virtually nothing in common, this card reminds me a lot of Warstorm Surge, in that it is an incredibly useful Enchantment ability with a CMC in red that scares away most everyone. But still, I love the implications of this card in a creature-heavy EDH deck with a high mana curve. 6 isn’t much to ask for in EDH, especially for a card that is essentially a better play than Cascade. I would expect to see this card frequently in red-inclined EDH decks in the future.
Deadeye Plunderers
I have an Esper Artifact EDH deck that can’t wait to have this card added to it. Not only does it supply mana, albeit at a relatively high cost, but it also buffs itself and benefits from artifact-heavy decks. My EDH deck runs about 40 artifacts if I’m not mistaken, making this guy an easy add into the mix. I saw this guy get pretty big in Prerelease last weekend from Treasure tokens alone, so I imagine he’ll be quite formidable in a Modern deck with even more affluence for artifacts.
I’m very excited to dive deep into this set! I’ll be surely adding a couple of new deck concepts as I collect cards, so definitely keep an eye out for that! Thanks for checking in!
— Dalton