I don’t know about you, but I love preview season. Every time Wizards of the Coast brings out a new set, it feels a bit like Christmas has come early. Everyone is keen to see what new toys different content creators have to show us, and what cards will be the next powerhouses for a multitude of formats. This time is no exception, as Ravnica Allegiance preview season has already given us some great new cards with which to spice up the upcoming Standard format. Well, I say there is no exception, but I have to say, this time around there is something different. You see this time around, Master of Magics has a preview card. And we are very excited to share it with you.
Getting a preview card is a real privilege and something we are honoured to be part of. But before we get to the card itself, we just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to Wizards of the Coast for giving us this free preview card to share with you all. Hopefully, this will be the first of many we will get to look at in the future, finger crossed on that. Now on to the card.
Regenesis is an uncommon instant that costs two Green mana and three of any colour. For that mana cost, you get to return up to two permanent cards from your graveyard to your hand at instant speed. Green recursion is nothing new to the game, and when I first laid eyes upon this card I saw it as nothing more than a double Nature’s Spiral. However, unlike Nature’s Spiral, or similar, Regenesis provides a lot more flexibility, allowing you to hold your mana open for other spells if required.
Let’s say you were playing a Sultai (or Bug for you old school players) and have a couple of threats in your graveyard you would like to get back. You want to put pressure on your opponent, but you want to hold up counter magic or a removal spell. With Regenesis, you can leave your options open, keeping counter magic up during their main phases and casting regenesis in their end step if your mana is still available. Another nice interaction to note in this regard is its synergy with the recently spoiled Frilled Mystic.
It’s also worth noting that you get to return up to two permanents from your graveyard, not just creatures. Maybe you had your Dark Depths and Thespian Stage fall victim to a few Stone Rain effects? Well, now you can get the combo back in your hand when it is most convenient for you. Regenesis gives you a ton of options and I don’t know about you, but I love options.
So, the card has some potential. But how do we best take advantage of it in our games? Since it is a five-mana spell, it might be a bit too slow for Standard or Modern, but it could be very useful in everyone’s favourite multi-player format. That’s right, its time to brew with Regenesis for Commander. Now I love building decks, but I have to admit building for a singleton format is not my speciality. Luckily, we have some experienced Commander brewers on our team and they were more than keen to find the right home for our first ever preview card.
Sam Waters’ Jund Lands
This deck is an upgraded version of the one I put together based on the “Nature’s Vengeance” Commander 2018 precon (which you can check out here). The core structure and plan is the same as in my original list, but both Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance has provided us with some excellent new toys to play with. Bedevil, Assassin’s Trophy, and Vraska, Golgari Queen upgrade the removal suite, whilst Underrealm Lich and the Golgari Queen’s +2 allows us to put lands into the graveyard for later reuse.
Commander
Lord Windgrace
Regenesis plays a number of roles in this deck. The most obvious is its ability to rebuy two discarded lands to fuel Lord Windgrace’s +2 or Borborygmos Enraged, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Why not pull back two Sagas once they’ve run their course, or the Doubling Season and Crucible of Worlds your opponent’s made it their priority to kill? Maybe you Dredged over an important win condition like The Gitrog Monster or Purphoros, God of the Forge, and now you need to get it back, or you want to rebuy both halves of a combo like World Shaper and Omnath, Locus of Rage at instant speed. It can also play a defensive role – this deck is particularly susceptible to graveyard hate and being able to salvage the right pair of permanents in response to a Rest in Peace might just be the difference between victory and defeat!
Samuel Peters’ Vorinclex Green
While our spoiler may not be the flashiest, it can provide great value in the right deck. When looking for inspiration on how I wanted to showcase the card, I was reminded of a deck I’ve been on the fence about building for a while. I’m a green mage at heart, but I very rarely run green decks without another splash of colour to provide real definition to the deck I’m playing, as mono-green lists tend to all look relatively similar, typically trying to ramp into large creatures with the aim of stomping all over their opponents’ faces. While this is a viable strategy, and one which many enjoy, it is not something which I find particularly engaging. The decks which I really enjoy are those built upon heavy synergies with an overall deck plan into which most cards in the deck play.
My take on mono-green adopts this philosophy, and I approached deckbuilding with the attitude that keeping your opponent’s guessing as to your overall game plan is often a massive advantage in multiplayer games. And so, I threw away the usual mono-green strategy of “ramp, deploy large creatures, and proceed to smash our opponents’ faces” and thought of a more synergistic, interesting way of playing mono-green. I also wanted to see what kind of shenanigans could be enabled by almost every available mana-doubling card. In the end, this is what I came up with:
Commander
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
The deck’s main goal is to reach a turning point during which it can win the game in a single turn by generating an obscene amount of mana. The main win conditions in the deck are Beacon of Creation, Kamahl, fist of Krosa, or Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth, which allow us to generate a huge trampling army in a single turn to finish opponents. Squall Line in combination with the lifegain options in the deck (Nourishing Shoal and Lifeblood Hydra) can also be used to eliminate the entire table, and, as a backup option, Helix Pinnacle can be used to win the game in a single turn or in a few turns at most.
The win conditions in the deck are, by the nature of being green, vulnerable to interruption, and as such we are including some failsafes, such as Dosan the Falling Leaf and Defense Grid to protect us during our winning turn. We run a standard suite of typical mana acceleration including the aforementioned Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Skyshroud Claim, and Sakura-Tribe Elder, as well as some card advantage engines, namely Mind’s Eye, Tireless Tracker, and Sylvan Library. Some green creature tutors allow us to assemble combos easily, and we’ve also included a minor land destruction theme to punish greedy manabases, which includes cards like Strip Mine and Ghost Quarter along with Crucible of Worlds, Azusa, Lost But Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya, and Ramunap Excavator. Titania Defender of Agroth complements this package nicely, and also allows us to recur some of our utility lands which might have been destroyed.
As our deck plays somewhat as a pseudo-combo deck, Regenesis really fits in nicely, being an instant speed way to recur the right answers to allow us to go off. Many of our win conditions or win-facilitators are permanents, as are our primary defensive tools which can be recurred to stall the game until we can eliminate our opponents. Regenesis also mitigates the downsides of wiping our own board with our colourless boardwipes, letting us retrieve our mana accelerants when required or any stray combo pieces which may have been swept away.
Overall the deck is a blast, and while it may not be the most competitive, it certainly is a fun and unique take on mono-green. As the deck runs so much universal mana acceleration, even if your games don’t result in victory, they will definitely be interesting!
Chris’ Block EDH
When brainstorming my list for our spoiler card, I set myself a deckbuilding challenge. Not only would my deck include Regenesis, but it would doing so while doing the pillars of my Commander philosophy some justice. In terms of this list, no you haven’t misread. Transguild Courier is my commander (it isn’t really legendary). The reason for ‘promoting’ it to Commander status is because while building my deck, I only allowed myself to include common and uncommon cards from the Ravnica sets: Ravnica City of Guilds, Guildpact, Dissension, Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon’s Maze, Guilds of Ravnica… and I had a little help from some early cards that have already been previewed for Ravnica Allegiance and Angel of Despair being reprinted at uncommon in Ultimate Masters. As you’d expect, the deck is a bit more of a David than a Goliath, but it packs a lot of value and many potential 2-for-1s to ride the tide of troubles you’ll encounter in a typical Commander game, and the deck attempts to make good use of Regenesis. You can find it with Brainspoil or Invert // Invent and it can be used to rebuy utility spells such as Dimir Infiltrator and Drift of Phantasms that may have previously been used to find other cards. There’s even an Izzet Chronarch in the list to allow us to return Regenesis and other useful instants and sorceries back to our hand in case you need even more value!
Commander
Transguild Courier
We hope you have enjoyed todays preview article. Again, a massive thank you to Wizards of the Coast for our free preview. Hopefully this will be the first of many preview cards we get to share with you all in the future. We would love to hear your thoughts on Regensis, so why not let us know what you think about it in the comments below. And while you’re there why not like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do at the site. We release two articles a week on topics ranging from legacy to standard and from casual to pro play. Thanks for dropping by and until next time remember, Good Luck and Have Fun!
