First impressions from Rivals of Ixalan!

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Newsletter
Thursday, January 4th

With a new year comes new opportunities, and apparently a whole slew of new Magic cards! Assuming you haven't been living under a rock over the past few days, you're very much aware that Rivals of Ixalan preview season is underway. And what a preview season it has been! We've had some of our very best here at StarCityGames.com tackle Magic's newest set and they're excited about what they've seen.

Looking for ways to break Journey to Eternity / Atzal, Cave of Eternity in Modern? Three-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor, Sam Black, has got you covered. Curious about how Merfolk Mistbinder and Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca improve Merfolk in Standard? Look no further than 2015 StarCityGames.com Players' Champion, Jim Davis. And why the heck is Todd Anderson, the player with the most SCG Tour Open Top 8s, so darn excited about Ravenous Chupacabra? I guess you'll just have to read and find out!

And when you're done reading about all we've got to say about Rivals of Ixalan? Then you can turn your attention to Brad Nelson, Shaun McLaren, and the returning Ben Friedman for their thoughts on Modern just in time for Columbus—the city where I'll be joined by Patrick Sullivan, Nick Miller and the rest of the SCG Tour crew to kick off Season One of the 2018 SCG Tour! Happy New Year, indeed!

— Cedric Phillips, Content Coordinator

January 13-14
Sealed & 2HG Sealed

January 20-21
Team Constructed

January 27-28
Team Constructed

Journey To Eternity In Modern
By Sam Black  

Unless we see a surprise reprint of Viscera Seer, maybe alongside some kind of bloodthirsty pirate that wants to eat all its friends, we won't likely find a home for this card in Standard. But with the right support, Journey to Eternity could be powerful enough to create an entirely new Modern deck.

Journey to Eternity is extremely easy to trigger, if you build your deck around it. In fact, if your opponent can ever kill your Journey to Eternity, I'd say you're doing it wrong. This card is like Recurring Nightmare, an enchantment that your opponent should almost never be able to interact with using enchantment removal because you should always be ready to sacrifice the creature in response. All you need to find Atzal, Cave of Eternity is to resolve Journey to Eternity on a creature you can immediately sacrifice. Bonus points for additional effects you can generate from sacrificing your creature or from it returning to the battlefield.

There are creatures you can sacrifice in Standard, but nothing that makes it easy to get Atzal, Cave of Eternity onto the battlefield on turn 3. In Modern, however, there are a wealth of options, from reliable ways to sacrifice any creature to creatures that are excellent at sacrificing themselves.

From Mer-Joke To Mer-Broke
By Jim Davis  

With Rivals of Ixalan on the horizon it's time to start paying attention, because Merfolk is no longer going to be the black sheep of the bunch.

It's common logic that tribal decks need a critical mass of playable cards to put together a deck, and frankly it makes a lot of sense that the Ixalan tribes failed on their first go of it. Prior to Ixalan, there were zero Dinosaurs or Merfolk legal in Standard, and only pairs of Vampires and Pirates. With so few options available, building a tribal deck that can have a high enough power level to compete in Standard is very difficult. We saw this very recently with all of the Innistrad Zombies needing Amonket's help to finally break through.

Quality is important too, as what tribal decks really need to succeed is excellent one- and two-drops paired with big time payoff cards that reward you for putting a ton of a certain creature type in your deck. Think cards like Goblin Ringleader, Cryptbreaker, Priest of Titania, and Lord of Atlantis. Even with only a small amount of Rivals of Ixalan previewed so far, Merfolk is already getting quite the shot in the arm.

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Todd's Top 8 From Rivals Of Ixalan
By Todd Anderson  

Many of you probably haven't played Magic long enough to remember creatures like Nekrataal or Flametongue Kavu, but those effects can be very powerful in creature-heavy formats. We've already seen a little bit of this with Sand Strangler in Ben Stark's Treasure Red deck at GP Atlanta last year, as well as from the sideboard of many Ramunap Red strategies.

Ravenous Chupacabra seems pretty disgusting if you can reuse the effect. Black means The Scarab God. Pairing it with blue means Vizier of Many Faces. And pairing it with artifacts means yet another tool for God-Pharaoh's Gift. While some might argue that Hostage Taker is potentially better, since you can actually cast the card you steal, I want my effect now. I don't want to wait until the seventh turn or later to cast Hostage Taker and the card I take. I want to curve out and kill something on the fourth turn, then follow it up by copying or reusing said ability.

Ravenous Chupacabra, while only a 2/2 after its effect, should be a fine addition to a lot of strategies in Standard. While the body isn't going to be hugely relevant, I think pairing it alongside some raid abilities also sounds like a fine idea.