As with all new MTG sets Zendikar Rising has brought a selection of new, fun card combos which are so incredibly off meta that not only will they never be used, many of them will never even be known about by many players. Not only does this mean many will miss out on enjoying these interactions and abilities, but it also means on the rare occasion they are used your opponent is rarely expecting them. Without further introduction, and in no particular order, here are the top three card abilities and combos from Zendikar Rising I’ve found and enjoyed so far in the first week of release.
3. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
This mythic rare five mana legendary green creature is an absolute delight to run in pretty much any deck with green as an option. Ignoring how it increases in power as you ramp, the biggest feature Ashaya provides is turning all nontoken creatures (including itself) that enter the battlefield into Forest lands. Not only does it allow you to fully exploit the set’s landfall mechanic by triggering landfall abilities whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield, and give you extra mana equal to however many nontoken creatures you have, and increase Ashaya’s own power by playing creatures, but by making creatures into lands it shuts down any removal an opponent might use to target nonland permanents. The most common victim of this ability is Banishing Light, one of the most popular white removal spells in Standard at the moment, which opponents invariably play in response to dropping Ashaya only to realise they can’t target it or any other opposing creature. Cards like Into the Roil, Kiora Bests the Sea God, Ondu Inversion, and Ruinous Ultimatum also fall to Ashaya’s removal of any nonland creatures from your side of the battlefield, making it fun and useful against a variety of deck archetypes to block their interactions.
2. Leyline Tyrant & Chromatic Orrery (& Nyxbloom Ancient)
If you can get these three cards in play, you have the setup for a great joke that starts with a four mana cost dragon saying ‘knock knock’ and ends with your opponent staring at their life wondering just how it got that far into the negative without you even attacking. Pop out Leyline Tyrant and start hoarding mana like you yourself are a dragon, all the while positioning to get out Chromatic Orrery and Nyxbloom Ancient. Assuming you get the full seven land required to play the latter two cards without using something like Irencrag Feat, you can tap everything for 36 potential damage the turn after everything is in place. You can always just keep adding to that, of course, by tapping everything for up to 12 more damage (the red mana at least is cumulative thanks to Leyline Tyrant) per turn. If that isn’t enough, you can increase it further by throwing in a couple of Fiery Emancipation enchantments, or even just a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove to make sure all your land taps for red mana. At that point the only problem you should have is how to make sure your Leyline Tyrant dies when you want to pull off this incredibly fun but janky combo, which is easy with a couple of targeted red damage spells or a sacrifice (other options include a Fiery Emancipation boosted Ugin, the Spirit Dragon).
1. Lithoform Engine
It copies. It copies abilities! It copies spells! It copies permanents! It copies all the fun stuff, including planeswalker abilities. Do you want to draw some cards and gain some life but the seven Ugin is giving you isn’t enough? Double it! Think two +1/+1 counters and two token creatures would be more fun than one but Basri Ket’s -6 ultimate ability is too slow to build towards? Play this four mana colourless artifact you can throw in any colour deck and watch as abilities so powerful many players immediately concede when used against them are used twice as much! Or I suppose you could just copy one of the hundred thrice mutated into Auspicious Starrix Scute Swarm ability triggers currently trying to resolve in the stack?
Chris Jackson is a postgraduate historian from the United Kingdom and lifelong video game lover. He went to university to do two degrees in History not because it was a viable career path but because he was inspired by Civilization III as a child to conquer the world (at least virtually). His favourite games at the moment are MTG Arena and Divinity: Original Sin 2, and while his CV describes him as a bartender, his current job title is really Dungeon Master for his four ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
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