My Kaldheim Top 10

This article is a bit of a self indulgence, but I hope my excitement for standard and these cards might inspire others. This is also not about cards which I expect to see play necessarily, this is more about the cards I am excited about. Obviously, I could put the four pathways as 10–7 on this list, and be guaranteed of correctness in them being played. However, I want to just talk about some cards I am excited about, and which get me hyped to play more Magic in the coming weeks. I also want to write something this weekend about where standard is at, and hopefully, some decks I like.

10. Niko Aris

This card does a lot for me. While I am not 100% confident in this card seeing play, I am excited about the prospect of it. Niko’s character speaks to me on a deep level, so I am predisposed to being excited about this card, but the abilities are interesting. In addition, I also love the play patterns it encourages. Rebuying powerful control creatures in this set, using card draw to do damage based removal to protect Niko, and even using their Shards to draw more cards or trigger constellation. I don’t think Niko will lead to traditional UW control being viable, but I think they are a piece of that deck being potentially successful. I can see a control shell which leverages Niko, Yorion and Archon of Sun’s Grace to build some large battlefields. I also think there may be a world where using Niko’s +1 to get back Skyclave Apparition is important.

9. Valki God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor

Finally! A card that hates on Uro, the current scourge of st… I am being informed that the card was banned. Likely for the best. Even still, this card does WORK in Rakdos, and it breathes light into hand disruption which has not been viable in standard since War of The Spark? I am not sure exactly when hand disruption was good in standard, but Valki is an interesting take on it. This card also curves incredibly well. You steal a 3 drop creature (Bone Crusher Giant, Lovestruck Beast, Kazandu Mammoth), and turn three Valki can become that creature. The backside Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor is also just a solid finisher for midrange decks. Card draw, removal, win the game. The classic Planeswalker formula, and it’s just as powerful on Tibalt as other classic Planeswalkers.

8. Ascendant Spirit

Ascendant spirit is both a really interesting incentive to play snow lands, and a way to use mana you hold up if your opponent doesn’t cast something you care about interacting with. It’s also solid onedrop which Standard is severely lacking. In addition, this card’s design space also means you can blank a stomp on the play if you don’t have a counterspell which is really powerful. It also crews another one of my favorite cards, which I will discuss next.

7. Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel

Look, there’s a lot of text on this card. However, I think that text is 1. Good and 2. Extremely interesting. Cosima is at worst a 3 mana 2/4. At medium, you play it turn 3, you’re not under a lot of pressure. You get to play your land drops, and bring it back as a 5/7 and draw 3 cards. At its absolute most busted, you play Cosima, and you can flip it up into drawing 6 and making a 8/10. While the last scenario I don’t envision happening often, the medium case seems extremely likely. In addition, The Omenkeel is a solid creature. There are not a ton of great one drop blue cards, but if you dip into another card to get one drop that can crew this reasonably, I can see an Azorious Fliers or Izzet Aggro deck taking a lot of advantage of the Omenkeel’s ability to attack. The problem is of course, Eldraine Creatures, but I won’t let them blunt my optimism too much.

6. Showdown of The Skalds

Escape To The Wilds is banned. Now four is meaningfully less than five, and you don’t get extra mana, but drawing four cards off this is really powerful, and you can also blink it with Yorion. It’s also Boros which means you will likely have cards which can grow off the cards you draw, and in historic, I think this might give new life to an old favorite of mine, Boros Feather. While I doubt that deck will be tier one, that’s one of the more niche applications I can think of. I can see this being great in a Jeskai Yorion Deck which only minimally benefits from chapters II and III of this card. It’s also an interesting card advantage in Boros which is welcome.

5. Esika’s Chariot

Esika’s Chariot is adorable, and it’s easy to crew in almost any green based deck in current standard. It creates its own cat crew, and it can also go into Mono-Green food to refuel food tokens, get extra 1/1s for Lovestruck Beast, make more cats to keep the pressure going. In addition, a lot of other token makers exist in Green as well as other colors. This card is also just reasonable on rate, and it allows you to snowball advantages and pressure in the early and midgame.

4. Immerstrum Predator

Vampire Dragon is an amazing creature type. Rakdos is my favorite color combination to play, and my second favorite color pair (after Izzet). Sacrificing creatures for protection and growing a threat is an ability I love. I can see a Jund Dragons list with this and Korvold being semi-viable. While I do have concerns, there is a lot of exile based removal, I don’t think Immersturm Predator should be ignored.

3. Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff

Of the decks I had banned out from under me, at this point I consider that to be six decks, Wilderness Reclamation was the one I had spent the least time with. However, doubling your Mana is powerful. Jorn is not Wilderness Reclamation, but untapping all of your lands is an effect you can build around. Jorn needing to attack also makes him far more tame than Reclamation. He’s also far easier to remove, but I still see potential here. Building a Bant control deck which uses Jorn to foretell things during the first main phase, then untap lands to have open counters, or bluff that to your opponent seems interesting. An aggressive Gruul build which uses this turbo out Questing Beast + Embercleave doesn’t seem impossible. The exact build for Jorn is one which is not facially obvious, which I also like. Untapping each snow permanent also creates pseudo vigilance, and could allow for multiple tricks with Ascendant Spirit or Faceless Haven.

2. The Raven’s Warning

Look, this card probably won’t hit, but damn I love this card. It seems powerful in an early game Yorion build, it gets you some life and potential blocks in a dire situation. It gets you more cards and a look at your opponent’s hand, and you get a wish spell at the end. I also think blinking this with Yorion, if you wait to play it, could be really powerful. It also combines two of my favorite effects, Gitaxian Probe and Curios Obsession, in a way I think is really elegant and powerful. While I can see this being a do-nothing card in standard, it’s the most me card in the set, so I want to put it on my top 10.

1. Goldspan Dragon

The last card speaks to mature, adult, competitive Florence. This card speaks to her, and sweet, simple, ten year old me casting Nightmare, and playing with my little brother in a far simpler time in my life. Goldspan Dragon is extremely powerful. 5 mana, 4/4 flying haste is solid on rate. Luckily, this card does not get blanked by Eldraine creatures, and it gets your mana investment back. This card can work in so many shells. In a big mono-red deck, the two mana from a treasure created when you declare attackers could be used to flash in an Embercleave. It could be used to cast a removal spell, double Frostbite seems like a reasonable direction. Also, I started watching Yu-Gi-Oh when I was five, I just like dragons.