Why we're excited for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

Why we're excited for Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

Stumbling through the hanging ferns and thick mud, Freyi pushed her way out of the jungle and into the clearing. The creature must be long behind her, now. Her whole arm was shaking and her chest was heavy. She must have been running for an hour, at least. The clearing opened up to a steep cliff-face, towering over dense forestry miles around. She was hopelessly lost, but she would not falter. Sword drawn, Freyi spun on a heel to meet her pursuer face-on.

There was nothing. Silence. Her eyes darted all around. Was it flanking her? Did it even know where she was? How far had she run? Where? Whe-

sshlick.

Freyi dropped her weapon. Her vision fading, she slowly and softly grasped the spike that had slid through her abdomen and erupted through her chest. Her body slumped forward, and she coughed a spat of blood onto her tunic. The creature had been right behind her the whole time, taunting her. "Otrimi" as the clansmen called her, leaned high over Freyi, head hung upside down over the human, her mouth spread wide in a closed, yet equally mocking smirk. This was all just a game of fetch to her, and the chase had come to an end.

 Liked that? Then you'll LOVE Ikoria!

IKORIA: LAND OF BEHEMOTHS is the next main set in our favourite card game, Magic: the Gathering, and for what might be the first time, Wizards of the Coast have actually tied the new Commander precons to this new set! Cards in the Commander decks are all Ikoria related, and are supported by themes in the main set, making for deck upgrades to be much more streamlined, but still allow for plenty of older cards to shine! 

There are 5 decks in this cycle, breaking from the expected 4 and going back to a higher number, much like 2016's four colour commanders and earlier. Make a deck all around the colossal, magic-soaking stegosaur, Kalamax, the Stormsire! Abuse the consistency Otrimi, the Ever-Faithful delivers to a Mutate deck! Gavi, Nest Warden brings cycling to the forefront of the Casual Commander meta, defining it as an all-powerful value machine! Never let a body go to waste with the hive-mind Kathril, Aspect Warper! Finally, Jirina Kudro brings a Mardu twist to the (usually Abzan/Orzhov) Human Tribal strategy!

Who are all these characters? What is Mutate? If these are questions you're asking, I'm going to answer two of them in one card; Otrimi, the Ever-Faithful! Let's see what we can do with this!

So the theme is very straight-forward.

  1. Mutate Otrimi onto a small (or even large) creature
  2. Attack for huge Trample damage
  3. Get yourself another Mutation from the graveyard
  4. Mutate again!
  5. Repeat steps 2-4!

Mutating is a new mechanic being introduced in Ikoria that allows you to cast creatures for an alternative casting cost; their Mutate cost. Usually, the mutate cost is marginally cheaper than the cards original mana cost, but this isn't an absolute rule and quite a few cards with powerful "When this creature Mutates..." triggers have fairly expensive Mutate costs. A mutating creature, when cast, enters the battlefield attached to target creature you already control, either on top of or underneath the target. Now, this is where it gets tricky. Whatever creature ends up on top is the actual creature. That means it's name, CMC, Power, Toughness, Text box etc are all the original creature's printed stats (until you affect it in any alternate fashion), but it also gains all the printed abilities (including keywords) of each creature below it. Mairsil, the Pretender eat your heart out.

Mutated creatures have very strange qualities that are definitely going to make or break the mechanic. Mutated creatures, when removed from the field, split into their separate parts before ending up in the new zone they are required to resolve in. What this means, essentially, is that a mutated creature enters the graveyard or enters exile as a pile of its parts. In most instances this makes sense and is not entirely game-breaking, but sometimes it makes less sense.

Lets create a cool and quick example. I'm playing my new Otrimi deck, and I have a fat stack of creatures under Otrimi. Let's say I have an "Otrimi, the Ever-Playful" on my field and attached under it is an "Invisible Stalker", "Brokkos, Apex of Forever" and a "Sea-Dasher Octopus". Sitting next to it is a "Zulaport Cutthroat". You're at five life, and you're having trouble with dealing with this hexproof-unblockable Nightmare. To survive, you strike a deal with the nearby white player (who has twenty-three cat tokens, but is also at five life) to cast "Wrath of God", either offering them a truce, or I don't know a Big Mac (depends on your pod). 

You know I "technically" only have 2 creatures, so you'll only lose 2 life each and you have a fighting chance, at least. The spell is cast, I'm looking in my hand for the Counter-Spell, and after some careful deliberation I declare that I don't have one. You breath a sigh of relief, which is abruptly halted when, even though i can't counter the spell, I still tap 1 blue mana for an "Essence Flux", targeting my own Otrimi. At first you're confused, as the board wipe will still result in my Commander biting the dust. You don't respond, and Otrimi is exiled and then returns to the battlefield. This means that, while in exile, Otrimi split up into its parts and was then returned to the battlefield. This means that all of the creatures used to "Megazord" my commander are now back on the field, and with a whole five creatures now resolved on my field, the Wrath resolves, and with Zulaport Cutthroat seeing all of them die, you both lose the game.

Now if you're just looking at this card at face-value it's only OK. Grabbing more and more Mutate cards is great and all, but is it another Gishath? Are Mutate creatures even worth getting? While Otrimi comes loaded with targets already packed into her deck, cards like "Sawtusk Demolisher", "Souvenir Snatcher"  and "Mindleecher" are all awesome cards to pack the deck with, but with "Zaxara, the Exemplary" being one of the alternate commanders, the deck is sealed up with a total of 10 creatures that care about +1/+1 counters. Normally, this is fine for most creature-based decks, but with Otrimi caring so exclusively about Mutate, let's see what the main set has to offer, and maybe cull out some of those slots for more synergistic pieces.

"Brokkos, Apex of Forever" is a new mythic rare from Ikoria's main set, acting as the Sultai variant of the new "Apex" cycle. Compared to its brothers and sisters, it's less interesting (hard to compare with casting a tonne of spells for free or emptying your graveyard to the field) but definitely deserves a slot. Being able to consistently cast it from the graveyard to continuously abuse "When this creature Mutates..." triggers is going to be necessary for the deck to snowball into a win, and on the back-foot doubles as a way to turn any small creature into a 6/6 trampler.

"Dirge Bat" is an awesome, fast way of removing powerful threats that Otrimi can have a bit of a problem with. If a pesky "Drannith Magistrate" is causing you grief, snap it up with bat-boy and call it a day! Also, this is a great way to segue into the more nuanced application of Mutate. Dirge Bat is a 3/3 Flash Flying creature for only four mana. This is fine, but commander isn't about keywords and stats. This creature doesn't do much without its "When this creature Mutates..." trigger, and in order to immediately get that value you need to cast it for it's own Mutate cost. This means spending six mana on this creature alone, not to mention the cost of the creature its mutating onto. Easy to miss, but as the mutate cost is an alternate casting cost, it can be mutated at that flash speed.

"Gemrazer" is another powerful mutate creature that needs no justification to be immediately slammed into the deck. Reach and Trample are amazing keywords to be handing out to any creature, and removing sol rings and skullclamps here and there is an awesome bonus.

The theme of Mutate tends to be that the stronger cards in it's repertoire are all going to be abusing this, "When this creature mutates..." trigger. "Chittering Harvester", "Zagoth Mamba" and "Pouncing Shoreshark" are great examples of this as well, interacting with your opponent's threats and finding your own. Mutating creatures constantly will give you these triggers over and over again and of course that's going to be the strategy going forward, but it's also no surprise to anyone that Ikoria's main set is going to directly support the Ikoria-related Commander decks, especially the "Mutate" one.  

There are plenty of other interesting options to mutate onto, as well. The Mutate mechanic isn't exclusive to creatures that have Mutate. Any creature in the game, if already on the field, can be mutated, and this can resolve in fairly unfair ways. There are some obvious examples, too, like "Invisible Stalker", mentioned earlier. Having access to both Hexproof AND Unblockable on your commander is totally unrivalled by most other options, giving almost perfect evasion to a commander that wants to get combat damage through over and over again. Other notable options are "Memnite", "Ornithopter" and any other 0-cost creature. The Mutate cost for Otrimi is one less than its CMC, so you're essentially just casting Otrimi for one less mana than normally required, which is nice. This also applies to tokens created by cheap means, and there is no cheaper means than "Khalni Garden". I assume this land will be an auto-include for most Otrimi lists. I personally really like "True-Name Nemesis". Giving your commander straight protection from a player is a huge swing in power, and the taller the creature gets, the harder its going to get for players to interact with it. "Gladecover Scout" is another cheap Hexproofer, so it's worth a mention.

Cards that enter with +1/+1 counters are probably the final most important piece of the pie, usually entering as 0/0 creatures that have +1/+1 counters placed on them as they resolve. "Kalonian Hydra" and "Plaxcaster Frogling" come to mind immediately, either pumping your board considerably and/or giving your creatures shroud. The theme here is that paying five - six mana for a trample beater is not amazing, so you want to have some form of evasion, either from targeting, destruction or blocking (or, if you can, all 3!).

"Progenitor Mimic" has some really awesome synergy in this deck, too. The tokens it makes are of itself, and normally it doesn't copy over any static effects on it (counters, abilities given by auras, etc) but this does not apply to mutate! Mutated creatures are now a full sum of their parts, and this means that anything you mutate progenitor mimic with will gain its ability and will make copies of itself that are a whole line of creatures large!

Mutate is a mechanic that thrives in an Eternal format like commander. Cards that already exist in the game aren't designed to be mutated onto, and once the set hits that third or fourth year in age, cards will begin to let up on its design space. It's a mechanic that comes with plenty of depth by default, and Otrimi is an awesome commander to front this kind of value-oriented deck, both in design and colours, currently and likely in the long run.

And finally, as a mechanic, mutate is just weird. It's zany and it doesn't take anything around it into consideration. It breaks the game in both interesting and nasty ways, and is something that will definitely tear up in a budget-friendly pod. If you're into that kind of zany, weird, mechanically-intense stuff this is the commander for you.

Don't forget to preorder your Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths boosters and decks from Vault Games.