Top 9 Cards from Murders at Karlov Manor

And some thoughts on Pioneer mana-bases

The full spoiler for Murders at Karlov Manor is up and relative to recent sets it looks kind of weak.

This is not an issue, since Pioneer brewing is wide open currently with how radically the format has changed from LCI and the bans/unbans, so I am a bit relieved that there are also not a ton of new cards here I want to test.

That being said, these top cards are powerful and I am very much looking forward to trying them out in new decks. As always, this is a list of cards that are of particular interest to me, so will gravitate towards competitive midrangey cards.

9. Krenko’s Buzzcrusher

This is going straight into my Campus Restoration/Kami War Ponza deck. Land destruction is decently strong at the moment thanks to a number of recent additions (Demolition Field, Enigma Jewel, Sunken Citadel) and with how vulnerable Amalia Combo is to land destruction. Every new piece helps Ponza get closer to being a top tier deck.

The key aspect about land destruction is if you want to play a slower more interactive deck, you need to be able to stop the “unfair” decks. That is normally done with Black for discard or Blue for counterspells. Land destruction gives Red an option for dealing with the “unfair” decks that does not require pairing it with Blue or Black.

Buzzcrusher has the added benefit of being able to hit Lotus Field, which can help free up sideboard slots since you will have maindeck Lotus hate.

8. Anzrag, the Quake-Mole

Gruul Vehicles is on the downswing and Anzrag may be the exact card that gets it to reinvent itself a bit. Like, are we sure Esika’s Chariot is good?

What I particularly like about Anzrag is how well it pairs with a number of the main Gruul three drops: Reckless Stormseeker, Huntsman’s Redemption, and Voldaren Thrillseeker.

Curving the first two into Anzrag has the potential to be a huge amount of damage and close the game fast. Thrillseeker with an Anzrag in play can be 20 damage right there.

7. Warleader’s Call

I really like this without knowing exactly how to use it. Feels like it could provide both pressure and inevitability for an aggressive-midrange Boros deck.

Also curving Warleader’s Call into Ojer Axonil seems awesome.

6. Lightning Helix

Iconic card, great add to the format. I put a lot of value on incidental life gain (routinely running cards like Seed of Hope and, of course, Sheoldred). Still, I am not convinced this will see much play. Like it is unclear if a Boros midrange deck would even prefer this over Volcanic Spite.

Still it will find spots and will be exciting to test with in a wide range of decks from burn to control to see how it helps them play.

5. Deduce

This seems like a huge add for Indomitable Creativity.

The other question is if it is good enough to see play elsewhere, maybe more as a Think Twice variant. One spot that intrigues me is in instant speed Dimir decks. Having the Clue token as a way to reliably activate Revolt for Fatal Push is potentially a big add for those decks.

4. Novice Inspector

I have played a lot of Thraben Inspector, though not much recently. Having Rule of 8 of this effect is a huge deal for making it so you can reliably have it on one.

I am mostly thinking of this for Orzhov decks where they do not currently have a second good one mana creature that creates a token and since it is the color pair that perhaps makes the best use of game objects with cards like Rite of Oblivion and Deadly Dispute.

We have also seen with the printing of Sleight of Hand and what it did for Phoenix, how some decks really want Rule of 12. With Siren, Epicure, and Goose we have Rule of 12 now in all the other pairs if you want one drop that makes an artifact token.

3. Surveil Lands

I initially dismissed the Surveil Lands thinking like Temples they would not be good enough to see play outside of some combo decks.

However, there are two big differences from the Temples. Surveil is substantially better than Scry and these lands have the basic land types similar to the Shocklands.

The more I think about the Surveil lands I think they have the chance to change the texture of Pioneer manabases that enables a new class of deck and if this pans out they could have a meaningful impact on the format.

Pioneer mana supports 4 types of decks

1. Two Color Decks- The mana for two color is great and as such is the beating heart of Pioneer decks. Your default for most decks should be making them two color.

2. Mono-colored taking advantage of utility lands- Nykthos, Mutavault, Snow and Faceless Haven, Castle Locthwain are all rewards for going mono-colored

3. Three Colored Combo decks- Think decks like Amalia, Greasefang, Lotus, Neoform. To support three colored your mana-base deals you a ton of damage between shocks and Mana Confluence. You also don’t get to take advantage of the utility lands as much, so it only makes sense to run three color in a deck that can do something powerful fast.

4. 5 Color Triome- Think Bring to Light and Enigmatic. These decks have terrible mana that involves lands coming into play tapped. But their reward is being able to take over in the late game with playing cards like Omnath and Leyline Binding that are way above rate because of their expensive mana demands.

What you don’t have in Pioneer are three color slower interactive decks. With the mana-bases we have access to you give up way too much relative to going two color.

I think there is a chance the Surveil lands will enable three color interactive decks where the third color is a small splash you do not need until turn 4. The Triomes are surprisingly bad at supporting these kind of decks. You do not want your off color fixing to come into the battlefield tapped, so you end up with the situation where Triomes support 5 color decks but not 3 color decks.

Currently there is only one land that supports these types of interactive three colored decks: Fabled Passage. But now, with the typed Surveil lands, combined with Shocks and Passage, suddenly the Check lands start to look playable. You can use the Check lands for the splash color and between Fabled and Checked lands you can reliably have an untapped source of your third color with your fourth land drop without a mana-base that deals you a bunch of damage.

The kind of deck I am talking about here is kind of narrow, so how many decks does it matter for? I’m not sure, but that’s exactly the point, there may be a whole class of underexplored decks that were not supported by the mana.

This is likely particularly relevant for narrow synergy decks where key cards are spread across 3 colors (i.e. things like more midrange versions of Greasefang) and for Simic decks which cannot compete as an interactive deck because of their lack of creature interaction, so needs to be paired with a third color.

2. No More Lies

The moment we’ve been waiting for, a Mana Leak in Pioneer. Make Disappear is likely underrated and for Azorious decks No More Lies should be a strong upgrade.

No More Lies will clearly have a home in UW Control. I hope it will also enable some more midrange or tempo creature based decks in UW. The UW creature suite is a little bleak, so we will need to get creative with synergies beyond Spirits. Humans, Soldiers, Artifacts and Dragons all seem like they have promise but I have not figured anything out.

1. Gleaming Geardrake

Two of what I would consider my signature cards are Bloodtithe Harvester and Risen Reef. Cheap 2 for 1s where one part is a threat that must be dealt with is a winning formula.

If the threat is meaningful the opponent cannot ignore the body because of the threat it represents (value threat in Reef’s case). Your opponent then has to spend time and resources to deal with the threat so you are coming out ahead on both tempo and value, which is how you win midrange games of Magic.

Getting this in a two mana package is huge and that’s what we get in Gleaming Geardrake. There is a strong Izzet Shrapnel Blast deck at the moment, this seems strong there. Is Grixis Oni-Cult potentially a thing? Maybe just pairing with Fable and its treasure tokens will prove to be strong enough.

As someone who has likely played more Experimental Synthesizer than anyone in Pioneer, Gleaming Geardrake is definitely the card I am most excited about.