MTG Salvation

Hey y'all. With Modern Horizons being previewed, I wanted to stop by and talk about War of the Spark. I have a few updates to my build in the main post that I'll be posting separately here in a bit, as well as my thoughts on dealing with cards like Selvala's Stampede For right now, let's talk about that crazy Planeswalker set!

War of the Spark Set Review!

As always, I'll only be mentioning ones that are particular interest, here, rather than looking at each card in the set. Not even everything listed here is an auto-include or worth heavy consideration, but can at least be a talking point.

White

God-Eternal Oketra - What an amazingly powerful card! For 5-mana, a Double Strike, 3/6 that keeps coming back is already crazy enough. Add in her 1st triggered ability and it's just insane. I'm actually testing God-Eternal Oketra right now, and the additional board pressure has been pretty fantastic. 4/4 bodies are hard to deal with outside of board wipes, and Ayli can recover well from those. If you're running cards like Phyrexian Reclamation or Athreos, God of Passage, every creature you return to your hand threatens to come with a 4/4 vigilance Zombie in addition to whatever card you got back to cast. Absolutely stunning card worth trying!

Black

Bolas's Citadel - I just wanted to mention it here because it's obviously one of the power house cards in the set. It unfortunately really doesn't work that well here. We're already paying a chunk of life to other effects, and many of the cards in the deck that we use for ETB/death triggers are on the higher end of converted mana costs. This card isn't exactly for us.

Command the Dreadhorde - Alternatively, there's Command the Dreadhorde which can target both Creatures AND Planeswalkers. At 6-mana it's rather expensive, but could easily piece together a winning board state from our own graveyards and others'. It's worth a look, especially when played alongside cards like Glacial Chasm or other ways to prevent taking damage for that turn.

Dreadhorde Invasion - Comparable to Bitterblossom this is not. For us, this is simply sac fodder. At the cost of 1 life each turn, it's not particularly appealing, especially because if you do want sac fodder you're better off going wide than tall.

Finalie of Eternity - This is one of my favorite cards in the set! Unfortunately it's not an Instant, but if you need to take care of an aggressive board state early in the game without spending a board wipe, this can be a really good way of doing so. The flexibility is great, even with the secondary effect of pumping 10 mana into it aside. The final part of the spell is icing on the cake, but mana that we can easily generate in the later part of the game thanks to synergies with Ashnod's Altar.

God-Eternal Bontu - The second God-Eternal we're looking at is also pretty decent. A 5/6 body with Menace is nothing to laugh at, but what I love about Bontu is she can turn mana rocks and excess lands into card advantage in the late game. She's not an autoinclude by any means because there is a decent amount of card advantage already available to us, but she certainly is worthy of consideration.

Kaya's Ghostform - One could look at this and compare it to Angelic Renewal or Gift of Immortality. The down side of this compared to Angelic Renewal is that you need a target to put it on, and can't simply cast it and have it out on the battlefield ready and waiting. There are very few Planeswalkers worth considering for Ayli, so the ability to target Planeswalkers isn't too relevant. Overall it'd be hard to justify taking anything else out of the deck to put in Kaya's Ghostform.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - Speaking of the very few Planeswalkers that are worthy of putting in Ayli, this Liliana may well be one of them. Her static ability is very useful to us, and one of the only cards out there that doesn't specify "non-token Creature" to draw your card. Making a blocker or more sac fodder with her +1 is pretty average, but her -4 causing everyone to sacrifice two creatures is brutal for opponents while we hardly flinch. If you get her -9, it's a Cataclysm, though you should generally never assume you'll get a Planeswalker's ultimate. She is worth a try, though her 4BB mana cost has her competing with a lot of other things we want to be doing with the deck at that stage.

Liliana's Triumph - This is a pretty decent removal spell early on in the game that gets around Indestructible, Shroud and Hexproof. It's potentially worth considering at 1B and at Instant speed, but I find it really hard to see a card in the deck I'd pull for this, as targeted permanent removal is much more important.

Massacre Girl - I'll admit that this is a fun card with a really fun effect. The problem, though, is that you want to wait for her to get enough triggers to clear the board. Massacre Wurm she is not, as she provides no benefit from killing the creatures she kills. Really, if you want to kill the board, you either want to just kill it cleanly with an actual board wipe, but at least get some bonus for doing so. While a cute card, she unfortunately really doesn't do enough.

Multicolor

Cruel Celebrant - Here we have another version of Zulaport Cutthroat. I'm actually replacing Blood Artist in all of my decks with Cruel Celebrant for a couple reasons. Although Blood Artist triggers off of opponent's Creatures dying as well, the triggers from it and cards like it are mostly from my own sac engines running off. The second reason is that I prefer Zulaport and Celebrant due to them not targeting and hitting each opponent at the same time. No one can give themselves protection or hexproof and them be untargetable with these.

Despark - So, first, I'll give the short of my opinion on this removal card: I would never play over Utter End, Anguished Unmaking or Vindicate. Here's why: One reason is that I don't like the condition that the target must have a 4CMC or greater on Despark. It's easy to be tricked into thinking it's a better option than another spell card because it only costs WB and can hit a lot of targets in the mid/late game. But, that is still far too inconsistent for me. I'd rather have another spell that can remove Scavenging Ooze and stop my graveyard from being eaten, or exile Eternal Witness to stop recursion shenanigans. There are a lot of cases where I see myself sitting with a 2CMC card in my hand that can't hit a lot of the linchpins that lead to broken game states. I'll gladly pay 1 more for Vindicate. The largest threats aren't always 4CMC and above. Sometimes they're Cloudstone Curios, or Ashnod's Altars and other 2-3 mana sac outlets or engines that you need to kill ASAP. I want the most options I can muster, because depending on other people having good threat assessment is a liability, and the ability to surgically remove basically any target is an effect worth high redundancy. I'd still have Vindicate over this as a way to easily take out Maze of Ith, Volrath's Stronghold, Gavony Township, Gaea's Cradle, Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun etc. Recently decks in my meta have started loading up on Inkmoth Nexus + Karn's Bastion after I suggested the combination to a friend, because Evolution Sage/Flux Channeler can allow a scary amount of Proliferate. The Ixalan flip lands are huge, and Search for Azcanta flipped makes it really hard to slow spellslinger decks down. Costing 1-2 mana less than the existing options does not make it worth it, when it excludes so many important targets.

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord - I don't have much to say about the newest Sorin, unfortunately. The truth is that he doesn't do enough. His static ability only applies during our own turn. If you're still playing Sorin, Grim Nemesis or trouble with life in the late game and can swing in with our big fliers, he could be worth having on the board for that. Sometimes. But his +2 is unfortunately very weak, and his -X is costly when we have so many amazing reanimation options, as it is.

Lands

Blast Zone - This card is up for debate. On one hand, Ayli is very hungry for colored mana. In almost any scenario, I'd rather have colored mana than colorless. I already run a ton of utility lands, so this would have to be put in at the cost of replacing something else. It's something to do every turn with extra mana before your turn wheels back around, though, and threatens opponents and makes them think twice about playing combo pieces or certain cards. It may well be worth trying in place of a redundant effect like Kor Haven.

Emergence Zone - Despite a certain podcast duo constantly harping about Vedalken Orrery, I have refused to run it in any of my decks. A 4-mana do-nothing card when it enters the battlefield is not my cup of tea, and when I did try to run it in my decks, I often found that it sat in my hand because I didn't want to tap out to play it, or there was something way more effective I could be doing, instead. This goes not just for Ayli, but any deck I've played it in. What I have done, however, is add Emergence Zone to every deck I play, because flashing spells out of no where in the late game can easily set up for a win on my upcoming turn. This is something I highly recommend trying, because it only takes a land slot, rather than a spell slot. What I said above about Blasting Zone and the amount of utility lands I run holds true, but the potential for blowing out opponents at flash speed from a Land slot is far too good to pass up!

I actually don't think he's going to be any worse than optimized Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain decks. Both become extremely powerful the more Artifacts you can cast, but after he we spoiled I threw a deck together and tested him with some friends and honestly he wasn't as bad as he seems just looking at the card. There's balance in the fact that he's Mono-U. If you want to storm off with him, you have to balance having enough Artifacts to do that while trying to protect him from removal, or your other Artifacts for that matter. He could come out as early as Turn 2 with basically nothing to do with him in extremely optimized decks, or Turn 3 and cast one or two free spells in the VERY UTMOST best case scenario. He doesn't stop others from playing the game or responding. And while he can be built as Stax as others have mentioned, that archetype is relatively uncommon in the greater picture of the Commander community.

Quote from Creedmoor »

Is it just me or does it seem like they turned snow lands into a cash grab when they really just should be... idk... available to players? Full Art Snow Lands sounds expensive to me.

Long story short, I want to play that Treefolk but I doubt I will get a playset of lands to go with it due to the price.

This just sounds tinfoil hat more than anything. Modern Horizons is a print-to-demand set with 36 packs to a box. There's going to be ample amounts of Snow Lands to go around. It's not like Masters sets that are 24-packs to a box that retail at $300 MSRP (not that we have MSRP now), and a ton of it is going to be opened because it's over 85%+ new cards only available in the set. There's nothing "cash grabby" about it, but people sure do like that buzzword a lot.

I kind of want to build a deck for this with Jace, the Mind Sculptor+Tunnel Vision or Narset, Parter of Veils+Windfall in my Command Zones to prove the absurdity of having a "signature spell" in the Command Zone alongside Planeswalker as a Commander. It's really unfortunate that The Command Zone podcast gave this a large boost in attention, because it's frankly a silly idea for a format. Really tired of hearing about these riffs on Commander every few months, the subsequent begging of content creators and everyone to pay it attention and the slowly dying bandwagon that results afterwards.

She is fine, for the reasons stated. Plenty of cards exist that have abilities similar to Leovold, and they aren't Leovold. Commander is not Vintage, Legacy or Modern.

Great thread here, darrenhabib! I've been desperately trying to find a deck to fit the twins into, but its been very hard to find a place where they fit well. I've never been a fan of the more popular Superfriend jam-everything-and-a-Doubling-Season decks, but this looks like a lot fun and I think I may just kick around building a similar list!

Woop. Apologies for missing your more-recently-active thread for Dralnu! Figured I could post/continue our discussion over here for War of the Spark since you're actively updating, still!

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

I haven’t seen Jenn around for a little while, but I know she said life was getting pretty busy.

For my build, I’m super psyched to grab a copy of God-Eternal Kefnet and Narset’s Reversal. Both are super solid auto adds here.

Bolas’s Citadel I could see a place for as a storm finisher. It’s undoubtedly a strong card. I’m not sure if I’ll run a copy here myself, but I do try to stay a little shy of straight combo. Narset, partner of veils I like as a semi-leovold draw restriction. The amount of wheeling I do is not insignificant, so it’d make thing a lot more unilateral.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General I like, but I’m not sure if I like it here. The static ability will go wanting g a lot for what’s a fairly creature light build, so any value you get from her will come from her abilities. Which are strong, but for 4BB I question if it’s worth it.

Command the Dreadhorde I really like, and I’d look to fit a copy in here. Likewise with Finale of Eternity - you need to decathlon cast it to get enough value from it, but I can see that happening here fairly easily.

Deliver unto Evil doesn’t seem strong enough to me. Without a Bolas walker, and as a one time affair, it just needs to do a little more.

As for other new releases, I like Spark Double, but I’m not sure it’s better here than Clever Impersonator. Bond of Revival has the haste that Zombify and Rise from the Grave have always missed. Massacre Girl could be devastating, but I’m not sure it fits here well enough. All in all, there’s a lot of goodies from this set for Dralnu, and I think you’ve picked out most of the real gems.

I tend to agree with your assessments on the cards mentioned. It's going to be interesting finding a spot for Command the Dreadhorde and Finale of Eternity.

It's been a while since there's been any activity here, but I'm building Dralnu and this had the most recent discussion back in March. War of the Spark has provided some crazy good Dimir cards to try out for control.

I'm building a similar list, but I intend to try:

God-Eternal Kefnet
Narset, Parter of Veils
Ashiok, Dream Render
Blast Zone

Debating on:

Narset's Reversal
Bolas's Citadel
Command the Dreadhorde
Deliver Unto Evil
Finale of Eternity
Liliana, Dreadhorde General

I'm curious what y'all think is worth putting in. Ashiok and Narset are powerful, even though they aren't an Instant or Sorcery. Bolas's Citadel is a ridiculously easy way for Control to stay on top of the game by using life as a resource. Finale of Eternity and Command the Dreadhorde are pretty powerful reanimation/removal spells. Deliver Unto Evil is a reverse Fact or Fiction. Liliana, Dreadhorde General seems like an amazing late game card for the deck.

Can we please stop beating this dead horse?

I've only ever seen it played by people using cEDH decks. Never seen it outside of that handful of players at any of the stores I've gone to. Same way I think I've played someone using Flash Hulk maybe once since Protean Hulk was unbanned, but that was in a competitive group. With that in mind, I can't say I agree with Food Chain being banned or really even considered. It has a very specific purpose to a couple decks only usually played in competitive circles, outside of which it's generally not played. Ultimately, if anything, Food Chain is a play group power level issue that is easier to discuss with that player/group and comes with a certain expectation or conclusion. It's much different to the the Recurring Nightmare example, where that card could easily go in almost any Black deck and become ubiquitous for it's power level. In other words, Food Chain is confined to very specific decks, to very specific interactions. It's not how the general player base approaches the format.

Well the nectdeck comment is just asinine. You don't have to netdeck to know good cards in the format, or look at EDHREC. It's always funny to me when people bring up the word "netdeck" because it's usually used in such a poor argument or way of thinking. Netdecking ultimately means finding optimal or good cards and that you're using them, because that's what "netdecks" are: Optimized decks that were came to as a consensus of common knowledge of what a good assembly of cards are for a deck. Every time someone "netdecks" it's a list of cards that were tested and proven. You don't even need the internet to do that if you have a decent amount of exposure or experience in a format to know what you're doing. So really people? Just drop the "netdeck" thing. It's ignorant. Especially in Commander.

Quote from Ninja Bob »

Quote from JqlGirl »

When I was invited back to these forums, I looked forward to sharing my decklists with others here. However, after posting a couple and getting minimal responses, I'm wondering what the point is. I'm proud of my decklists and have spent a fair amount of time tuning these decks, so to take the effort to post it up in the multiplayer decklist forum and receive little to no feedback is disheartening. Are people here just not interested in other folks' decklists or what?

I agree. I think half of my deck threads received zero responses and get buried tot he 2nd page in under 48 hours. I haven't posted that many. Maybe 10 deck lists over the past 6 years.

If people are so much more interested in other deck lists that yours is getting buried to Page 2 within 48 hours, that would suggest there's a large difference in interest between your decks and the others that put you on Page 2. So there's either something lacking in the post content or people aren't interested for some reason or another. That's no fault of anyone else's. I'm also not saying it's your fault either, but for what you're claiming to happen there's a reason somewhere because all those other threads bumping you down are getting the feedback y'all are claiming is hard to get.

Quote from ForgottenPlaneswalker »

Planeswalkers grind the game to a halt because of their abilities? Well I should advise the concern also be directed to decks that have lots of nonland permanents, that act during their opponents turn, tutor frequently, that create sticky boards that are harder to break. That a variety of creature commanders can also make games go slow because of how they interact with the game as whole.

Planeswalkers are defensive and provide a health buffer? Creatures literally already act as buffers for your health. That like creatures, planeswalkers can also be offensive cards. Ever hear of ground-stalling?

Planeswalkers require resources to take care of? Good thing creaures, lands, enchantments, and artifacts aren't like that and don't require the deck to actually pack a healthy amount of means to remove those permanents. /s

Oh and I voted yes because I just want Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator as my commanders because he is my favorite of the planeswalkers, not because he is the strictly the best from a mechanical standpoint. That if the concern is power, ban the worst ones, allow the rest, and call it a day.

So, your argument for Planeswalkers is a sarcastic post that didn't even correctly address half of the issues you're attempting to poke holes in with faulty logic while simultaneously not actually doing anything to make a case for them?

Yep, there sure are archetypes and Commanders that see play that slow down the game. They're pretty niche and not often played, either, while the issue of slowing down games is inherent with any Planeswalker as a Commander for the reasons I listed that you couldn't cherry pick.

Yep. Creatures can block. Yet they don't divide your attacks between themselves and the player since it's not Hearthstone and you don't directly attack Creatures. The largest way of removing Planeswalkers is through combat damage where there's far less removal spells to be directed at Planeswalkers than any other type of removal out there. Your example falls flat.

Imagine a format that rarely sees Planeswalkers suddenly inundated with them coming out of the command zone on demand and having to further divide all those resources. Golly gee it's like on top of all of those things you mentioned that adding a bunch of something else to deal with that isn't often around might be stretching decks even thinner! You even made my case for me here. /s

In all seriousness, though, if all you have to offer the discussion here is to be sardonic then take that to social media or Twitter. We're actually having a discussion here.

Quote from Taleran »

I feel like that is a thing more based on the individual building the deck rather than more cards available.

If someone wants to make a controlling, taxing, life gaining deck or any combination of those things those tools already exist.

I am unsure if any p/w do this better than Commanders already legal.

You really don't want Dovin Baan, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Venser, the Sojourner, Ral, Izzet Viceroy or a number of other Planeswalkers to get their emblem off or it's going to be a nearly impossible uphill battle. When you're having to keep them under control while also dealing with one or two other players who are also playing Planeswalkers, you're so busy splitting your resources that the game is never going to move whether they taxes or control or not. The fact is that being forced to devote most of your combat or removal to Planeswalkers - not even including the other stuff in their deck - the game is grinding to a halt. You have no time to progress how your deck wants to play, because you have to worry about their Planeswalkers. In the current Commander environment you can make smart choices and trades and let some Commanders sit on the battlefield without worry about them. There is more nuance than "Keep everyone's Planeswalkers off of the board". That nuance is extremely lessened and gameplay becomes much less interesting.

Quote from JqlGirl »

Aside from the power level concerns that have been discussed here, my biggest concern on this subject is how having planeswalkers as commanders would affect the length of games. Planeswalkers are all basically life gain spells, as they draw aggro away from the control and can't attack like a creature commander can. Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game. In short, I believe that making this change would be bad for the format in terms of making games take too much longer. Commander isn't a format like standard or modern where there's a clock and a time limit. Commander goes as long as it goes, and I know that I'm always happy on days where I can get in more shorter games of Commander than days where I play fewer, longer games.

This is a point that I very much agree with. JLK and Jimmy Wong were discussing this on Twitter the yesterday, as well, when someone brought up one of the episodes of The Command Zone podcast where they talked about Planeswalkers as Commanders. They put it pretty much as you do here, in that ultimately, being forced to deal with way more Planeswalkers will take combat damage away from players and thus effectively be padding those life totals.

Sure there are plenty of non-combat oriented decks that don't really get into the red zone that much, but those actually make for an even better case regarding increased game length, because in at a table with 2 or 3 Planeswalker Commanders, if the only non-PWer Commander is a Meren deck or something that doesn't bother to attack much, then that makes those games even longer.

Another thing I want to bring up is that while I don't mind long games, I do mind games where everyone is trying desperately to keep one Commander off of the table. This is Commanders like Narset, Enlightened Master, Zur the Enchanter, etc. The Commanders where even at competitive tables, if you let them sit and everyone isn't attending to that player, they explode out of nowhere. At tables with those Commanders, you basically get very little time to progress what you're trying to do with your own deck because you have to be so concerned with what they're going to do. With Planeswalker Commanders, it's the same thing, except on a much larger scale. It is very rare that a game can afford for a Planeswalker emblem to go off. Some Planeswalkers, you don't even want them to use their middle ability more than once. Currently, if a Planeswalker lands in Commander games, it is either taken out fast, or gets lost in the chaos of the multiplayer nature of the format. In an environment where multiple people are able to cast a Planeswalker from the Command Zone on demand, you have to devote resources (time and spells) to keep them off of the board, constantly

Some people try to make a case that players should simply run more removal for Planeswalkers, but it's poor reasoning. Planeswalkers as Commanders will fundamentally change how people have to interact with and play games of Commander because of them being in the Command Zone. It's not as simple as adding removal. Aggro decks actually get worse because they have to focus on Planeswalkers. Certain colors get better, others don't. And this will be a reality. If someone doesn't believe it, look how every time the Commander precons come out, or even any set with a new Commander, you see a large number of people building and playing the new and shiny thing. There is a certain amount of room to explore when a new set of Commander decks come out, or a new set, before people exhaust the potential of those decks and either they lose their luster and move on, or they've optimized them and don't feel the need to keep playing them over and over again. This is a sensation that happens with every new set.

Now, imagine the above phenomenon but with the entire back catalog of Planeswalkers. That should tell you how many people you're going to see playing Planeswalkers as Commanders. It's new, it's a sudden whole new area of unexplored territory for the format at large. They're going to be absolutely rampant. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. And that sensation is going to last for a very, very long time because it's not a small handful of Legendary Creatures, half of which that have a certain or niche mechanic or operation. Planeswalkers are value engines. It would not be healthy for this format, and risks doing more damage to the format than good. People like Jeremy Noell and other Twitter personalities can suggest that it's as simple as just unleashing them all as much as they want, but it is not good for the stability that this format has as it currently exists, or it's long term health.

Hey everyone! Long delay since updating here, because... well, I confess that I've been focusing on a lot of other decks lately because Ayli has felt like she is in such a great spot and there hasn't been many cards to change or consider. But, War of the Spark is nearly upon us and that means I need to kick it into gear and do a quick review of Ravnica Allegiances! I'll look at everyone's posts and catch up in a separate post

Ravnica Allegiances Set Review!

As always, I'll only be mentioning ones that are particular interest, here, rather than looking at each card in the set. Not even everything listed here is an auto-include or worth heavy consideration, but can at least be a talking point.

White

Angel of Grace - We've seen similar effects to this the last few years such as Exquisite Archangel, Stunning Reversal and Resolute Archangel. These effects all basically prevent you from losing the game. I'm truthfully not a fan of any of these effects, because if you're in a position such as this then you're probably going to lose whether the save you or not. While you could make quite a come back, sitting at 1 life is quite perilous. Out of all of these effects, Resolute Archangel is probably my favorite because per the rules, whenever your life total becomes a set number, you gain or lose any amount of life equal to the difference. At least in that case, Resoluge Archangel works with Vizkopa Guildmage or Sanguine Bond if you play it.

Forbidding Spirit - Because of the ease of reanimation a Creature and the amount of effects that look for Creature deaths and the ability to save Creatures from exile effects by sacrificing them, it's almost always better to have an effect attached to a Creature than anything else. Forbidding Spirit is a one-off Ghostly Prison effect that lasts until your next turn. Depending on how much recursion you run and how easy it is to repeatedly reanimate something, Forbidding Spirit could quite easily be better than Ghostly Prison for Ayli. In addition, each time he enters the battlefield as a new permanent, his effect stacks. So, if you don't want to board wipe or want to encourage opponents to attack at other players, you can chain reanimate him with Corpse Dance or Nim Deathmantle and stack the Ghostly Prison effect.

Smothering Tithe - There is truly very little reason not to run Smothering Tithe in Ayli. The deck becomes mana hungry, and in times where you're the archenemy and spending a lot of resources on removal, recursion for that removal and keeping the hounds at bay, Smothering Tithe can be giving you a lot of excess mana. If you've seen the Ravnica Brawl Game Knights episode on YouTube, you'll also know how dangerous this makes wheels become for your opponents to cast.

Tithe Taker - I'd truly rather run Grand Abolisher. The 1 mana is a pittance to pay past Turn 3 or 4. If you're running a tax-heavy build where you're stacking those types of taxing effects, then he could be another to add to the pile. Otherwise, I'd steer clear of considering this guy.

Black

Font of Agonies - It would be very easy to add up counters on Font of Agonies. That much is certain. The problem with Font of Agonies is that there's already so much removal available that can target more than just Creatures. You could just as easily run Attrition and have sac fodder mostly on demand, or at least as often as you would have four blood counters on Font of Agonies. There will also be times you just never draw into those cards you pay life for, which are mainly Necropotence.

Priest of Forgotten Gods - Having to have two other Creatures on the battlefield that you want to sacrifice is the biggest downside of this Priest. It's quite often that we have at least one Creature to abuse for sacrifice. The effect you get for activating the Priest is well worth it and a huge advantage for you. I have yet to test her because I'm having a very hard time justifying putting her in place of something else. I think a comparable replacement would be Mangara of Corondor if you're running her, because of all the other exile effects available to Ayli. It can also be a meta call! If Enchantments and Artifacts aren't being super abused in your format, Leonin Relic-Warder could also make sense as a cut to try Priest of Forgotten Gods, with the caveat that you need to consistently have two other Creatures you're willing to sacrifice to use her.

Multicolor

Kaya, Orzhov Usurper - Once upon a time, many people thought that the new Kaya was a joke, and that her abilities would be too hard to use. Now, in the current Standard Esper Control lists, her -5 is a win condition. Consider this: You are very often paying life or losing life for something. She has continuous, cheap graveyard hate while simultaneously gaining you life every turn. Orzhov removal is already exiling cards left and right, especially if you run Merciless Eviction or Bojuka Bog another player. You can easily finish someone off with Kaya's -5 while gaining a ton of life in the late game. Her -1 isn't too relevant, but is a bonus because it can help slow others down to your level by exiling their Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mana Vault and so on. She really is worth considering!

Kaya's Wrath - This is technically better than Damnation or Wrath of God in most cases, because outside of facing Ezuri, Renegade Leader the "can't be regenerated" at the end of those is very rarely relevant. Kaya's Wrath gains you some life back that you probably lost if you're looking to wrath the board. An easy include, and a lot cheaper than the other two 4CC wrath effects, too!

Teysa Karlov - She is the most stand out card in the set for our strategy. Teysa is a Panharmonicon for death triggers, with the additional ability of giving tokens vigilance and lifelink. The biggest problem with including Teysa, is that just like Panharmonicon, half of the time or more she doesn't do anything. She makes certain triggers that much more deadly, and there is no denying that. But, unless you're running a token heavy build, she loses a lot of her oomph. Out of the 30 Creatures I run in my build, 7 have effects that actually happen on death that are triggered. Is it worth it to run her for just 7 creatures, even though those effects are powerful? It's a turn and 4 mana to play something that does nothing when it enters the battlefield. I truly can't say whether to run her or not, because it really depends on your own builds. For my own, I think passing on her is not something I will regret doing.

Revival // Revenge - This is an interesting utility card. There are 8 potential targets in my build for Revival, which isn't particularly bad for it's cost. Most of them are important pieces such as Viscera Seer, Fiend Hunter, Recruiter of the Guard, Vizkopa Guildmage and so on. When you don't need that, Revenge is a giant "SCREW YOU!" to an opponent that is being hard to kill, while buffering your own life total. While I have a hard time wanting to cut something for this, I could easily replace Unburial Rites or another similar reanimation effect for it to have the Revenge half waiting to nearly finish someone off. When you consider that you can get this back with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, it seems really silly to not want to run it.

Conclusion

It's not often we get the opportunity to see so many potential playables or upgrades in a set. It usually comes with these Ravnica sets because we get a set where at least a portion of it is dedicated to the Orzhov. All of the cards I mentioned here are quite playable in their own right, and there are many cards I did not go over such as the Afterlife cards that one could quite easily abuse in a build wanting to focus more on tokens.

War of the Spark is looking very interesting so far, so I'll be back soon to talk more about that, as well as potentially announce some changes to Ayli that I've been testing despite mostly focusing on fine tuning other decks. I hope everyone has been doing well, and thank everyone for the continued interest, feedback and participation in building and playing Ayli