Hello folks!

Ready to get your Amonkhet on? It hits release this Friday! I know lots of Magic players are going to be out all day long, playing in release day events, and more! Are you ready?

Now, unlike a lot of other recent sets, I feel like there is a real subtle side to Amonkhet. There are a bunch of cards out there that I genuinely think are really really good, and yet aren’t getting a lot of press. I haven’t seen them in articles, Top Ten lists, lists of deck swaps people are making and a lot more. But there is a good amount of quality there too. So I wanted to look at ten cards that I think are going under the radar right now for quality options.

10. Heart-Piercer Manticore

I think a lot of folks are sleeping on this 4/3 Manticore, because it can’t sacrifice itself. But that’s okay. It’s Fling is a “may” effect that can hit a player on resolution in addition to a creature. (Because you can target a player, and then redirect the damage to a Planeswalker, you have the potential to take out two different annoying permanent types). Now, it’s not Flametongue Kavu. We know that. It’s not even Smoldering Werewolf. But what makes it work is that sexy embalm, giving you two Flings for those decks that want them, and then a 4/3 creature when you don’t.

9. Bloodlust Inciter

When I saw this card on the Amonkhet spoiler for the first time, my eyes literally glazed over. It is, to my mind, one of the most subtle but intriguing haste enablers out there. Don’t forget that haste is really, really good in multiplayer. For example, if someone casts a Wrath of God, sweeps everything except for their indestructible God, should they tap it and swing at me, knowing that they keep themselves open to me playing a creature from my 5 card hand, equipping it with Lightning Greaves, and swinging? Haste enablers force people to think and make more decisions. They have to take into account haste-math. A Bloodlust Inciter can get in some free hits with your Commander early and push someone’s Commander damage to a dangerous level more quickly than normal. They can really push the table around, and given this is a 1-drop that would come down early, it can either have a good impact on the game or give you something to attack with or equip while you wait for better creatures to arrive. This is a surprisingly simple card that should play much better.

8. Cartouche of Strength

This is a pretty interesting aura, because of the fact that you have some card advantage built in by killing something with the fight ability. Many casual decks that run auras like getting trample on their guy and often have one target getting aura-ed, so they are pretty big already. Toss this onto an Uril, the Miststalker, for example, and fight and kill something while growing your threat level to midnight with an 8/8 trampling hexproof Beast. And that works for a lot of stuff. Kill something! Plus, you don’t have to fight, if there’s nothing you would survive, and you just need the aura, the fight is a “may” effect, which is even cooler! Get your Cartouche on!

7. Glyph Keeper

Before we get overly caught up in the details of Glyph Keeper, please note that our good Sphinx brings a five power flying body for five mana. That’s a lot of flying damage that can be done. Now, the worst thing here is that low three toughness, and that means you’ll trade with anything with a three power on up, as well as anything with a five toughness on down. That’s a lot of trading. But if the skies are open, you are going to get in some speedy hits. Plus, the fact that the Glyph Keeper is basically under a Kira, Great Glass-Spinner enchantment is pretty important. People aren’t likely to target it for removal, unless they have an effect like using a Staff of Nin on it to break the shield and then cast Swords to Plowshares on it. Note that the Glyph can come back once for an encore, so if you traded poorly with something like a Phantom Monster, well, it’s fine because it’ll come back again!

6. Supernatural Stamina

Black is increasingly getting a number of “Save your creature” effects like Dark Dabbling or Undying Evil. There are only a few out there, as this is not often in Black’s normal wheelhouse. This one strikes me as really good for a few reasons. First, you lose the creature and then it returns, so you can get another enters-the-battlefield trigger from it, like a Mulldrifter or Shriekmaw. Secondly, the ability to give it +2/+0 strikes me as really cool too! The best available option would be something like this:

You attack me with a 4/4 flying creature.

I block with Mulldrifter

I use Supernatural Stamina to pump my Mulldrifter to 4/2, and we trade.

Mulldrifter comes back onto the battlefield, tapped, and I draw two cards

The ability to get that strong combat trick effect to boost your creature to enough power to trade with someone while getting the creature back is just serious value. And you can just use it as a combat trick too, there may be times when that +2 will let you kill someone with Commander damage a turn earlier or something, and you don’t use it save your creature at all. Or you can cast it pre combat, attack with a key beater for another two damage, and then post-combat you can Wrath of God and keep out your nasty game-ending beater. There are a lot of ways to really use this card.

5. Ahn-Crop Champion

Ever since cards like Watchwolf, Loxodon Hierarch, and Mystic Enforcer showed that Green and White could rock together a power/toughness combo that was impressive, and then staple useful abilities to it if you want, we have had a slate of great creatures get printed. Here we have a 4/4 for 4 mana and when it swings, if it makes sense for the board, exert it and untap your entire team for blocking, tapping them for various abilities, and more. But also not that this is an exert lord, as you can attack with all exert abilities turned on, and then just untap them with the Champion!

4. Pyramid of the Pantheon

I feel like a lot of people have been sleeping on this card. Don’t. For one mana, you start the process of building up your Pyramid. Whenever you have two mana, tap it to make one and put a brick counter on this. Do it at the end of the turn when you aren’t doing anything else, or when a 2-drop to play on the third turn. And then what do you get for your trouble after the third brick arrives? A junky variant on Manalith that taps for just 1 mana? Nope! A Khalni Gem that forced you to build it rather than self-bounce lands and set back your tempo? Nope! You get a full on Gilded Lotus. That’s pretty saucy. Don’t sleep on a Pyramid outside at night unless you might get sacrificed to a Dark Ritual.

3. Heaven // Earth

The handful of articles I’ve seen that mention it talk about its future as a bulk rare or at best a sideboard in Standard. But this thing is awesome at the kitchen table, and might be underrated for Standard. First, you get a Windstorm on the front end. Lots of people at the kitchen table run flyers, so an instant X spell to sweep them away is very valuable. I have run Windstorm in a few decks already, so I know how cool of a surprise it is to toss it out at the end of someone’s turn to clear out the skies and then untap and take your turn. Earth is basically a weaker Earthquake that won’t hit players and costs one more to use. But it’s still a sweeper. The card advantage potential here from two sweepers on one card is unabashedly tremendous. But there’s a little trick here that folks may not realize. This is not a Windstorm at all if you don’t want it to be . . .  Just need the Earthquake-lite effect to sweep ground pounders? At the end of someone’s turn, play Heaven for zero mana and just tap a Green. Then untap and Earth and sweep all of those ground pounders away. That way you can run this with a deck with some flyers without having to worry about always choosing between them and the sweeping effect.

2. Khenra Charioteer

This is another great card from Amonkhet. 3 mana for a 3/3 trampler is already a good investment. But when you have other creatures out on the battlefield, they get trample too, so it enables some serious breaking through and smashery. A card that gives your whole team trample, like Primal Rage, is a two-mana enchantment. This is one more mana on a 3/3 body, and that’s nothing to snicker at. Especially in these colors where you can trample up a Dragon’s firebreathing or Green’s large beaters.

1 Devoted Crop-Mate

This is the card that inspired this article. I think I had Devoted Crop-Mate in my Next 10 last week when I paired the best down to 10, and it came in around 15 or 16. And I was surprised to see it get very little mention anywhere else, which is odd because of how good it strikes me. This thing is sexy. It’s a 3-drop that has a solid 3/2 presence, and when you exert it you can get a free Resurrection for a two-or-less drop creature. Many of the exert cards just give the creature in question a bonus, but a few offer actual, proper card advantage, such as Glorybringer or this. It works very well in a shell with a few self-sacrifice creatures like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Saffi Eriksdotter, or Felidar Cub. Or you can use it to bring back some dead friends that died earlier, and like Custodi Soulcaller, you can bring back the team while you swing away. It’s great stuff!

And there we are! Another ten-set of awesome cards from our Egypt/Nicol Bolas set. I hope you enjoyed this look at a group of cards that are going under the radar right now. What did you think? See anything in there you liked?