It's the eve of the Journey into Nyx Prerelease and that means it's time to get hyped. New cards. New interactions. New brews. Right around the prerelease of a new set is always the most exciting, because it's when people are the most creative. This is the time to dream big and forget about the boogeymen that have dominated your favorite formats. This is the time to think about all the sweet things that are possible and try to make them a reality.

We'll start with an interesting brew from Born of the Gods Standard that Malapropism took to 4-0 finish in a Standard Daily Event. This deck takes a few ideas that we've seen throughout the past few months and combines them into one deck that does many things. Let's take a look:

[Cardlist Title= Five-Color Reanimator - Born of the Gods Standard | Malapropism, 4-0 Standard Daily Event]

• Lands (22)
• 4 Breeding Pool
• 2 Godless Shrine
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 2 Temple Garden
• 4 Temple of Plenty
• 4 Temple of Silence

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 1 Chromanticore
• 4 Courser of Kruphix
• 2 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1 Mnemonic Wall
• 1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
• 1 Pharika's Mender
• 4 Satyr Wayfinder
• 1 Shadowborn Demon
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid
• 2 Sylvan Primordial
• 2 Voyaging Satyr

• Spells (15)
• 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
• 2 Grisly Salvage
• 3 Obzedat's Aid
• 1 Primeval Bounty
• 1 Prophetic Prism
• 2 Steam Augury
• 1 Trading Post
• 2 Whip of Erebos

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Assemble the Legion
• 1 Auramancer
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Bile Blight
• 1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
• 1 Bow of Nylea
• 1 Drown in Sorrow
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Merciless Eviction
• 1 Mistcutter Hydra
• 1 Prophet of Kruphix
• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Sire of Insanity

Buy This Deck

What happens when you throw caution to the wind and add two additional colors to your Junk Reanimator deck? You end up with this monstrosity. Stock your graveyard with Grisly Salvage, Steam Augury, and Satyr Wayfinder and then go off with Obzedat's Aid to rebuy anything from Garruk, Caller of Beasts to Primeval Bounty. You've even got a Trading Post to turn random Satyr Wayfinders into Whip of Erebos to jumpstart your engine and keep critical artifacts on the battlefield.

What I like most about this is the amount of flexibility that's available to this style of deck once you go the full five-colors. The core of your deck is still Green, Black, and White, but Steam Augury gives you a plan besides just ramping into enormous threats or having to find an Obzedat's Aid. We've seen variants on five-color decks before in this format, but never one this proactive or with such powerful openings fueled by Obzedat's Aid. I don't know if this style of deck can narrow its focus enough to compete with the hyper-linear devotion decks that have dominated the format, but I love that it exists as a shell to mess around with.

Feeling heroic? Journey into Nyx may have just brought exactylt he tools that the heroic mechanic needed to take the limelight in Standard. Mana Confluence along with additional low-cost, high-reward heroic creatures have given the deck better mana and more explosive draws. This week Brad Nelson set out to determine if UWR Heroes could be a real deck:

UWR Heroic - Journey into Nyx Standard | Brad Nelson

• Lands (20)
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Mana Confluence
• 4 Mutavault
• 4 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Steam Vents

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Akroan Crusader
• 4 Favored Hoplite
• 4 Nivmagus Elemental
• 4 Sage of Hours
• 4 Satyr Hoplite

• Spells (22)
• 2 Ordeal of Thassa
• 2 Bioshift
• 4 Gods Willing
• 1 Mizzium Skin
• 2 Retraction Helix
• 3 Triton Tactics
• 4 Hidden Strings
• 4 Trait Doctoring

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Aqueous Form
• 4 Ordeal of Heliod
• 4 Boros Charm
• 2 Mizzium Skin
• 1 Retraction Helix
• 2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride

Buy This Deck

Let me start by saying that this deck is not for the faint of heart. There are approximately a billion triggers and tons of lines that can be taken any turn. Figuring out which heroic creatures are most important and how to sequence them to play around removal and get through enough damage is another headache on top of the mechanics of tracking your triggers. That said, this deck is awesome and capable of some absurdly explosive draws.

Cipher spells let you trigger heroic and activate Nivmagus Elemental to keep the pressure up through the midgame. Akroan Crusader is a one-man army that forces your opponent to have removal immediately or to grind through an army of 1/1s before they get swarmed out. Many of your pump spells let you do all kinds of cool tricks, especially involving the Time Walk on legs, Sage of Hours. This build makes it pretty clear that you have to do quite a bit of work to get Sage of Hours active, but free turns to take advantage of additional heroic counters, 1/1 tokens, and Mutavaults seems like a reasonable payoff.

It's hard to say if this is a real deck in a post-Journey into Nyx world, but I certainly hope it is. Complex decks that reward familiarity and playskill are always good to see, especially when they bring a different mechanic into the limelight.

Speaking of new takes on old mechanics, one of the most exciting cards in Journey into Nyx has to be the new Verduran Enchantress. Eidolon of Blossoms has had a lot of hype surrounding it, particularly based on its interaction with Mana Bloom. Some people are heading in an aggressive direction with Ethereal Armor. Patrick Chapin has picked a different direction. One with Sphere of Safety and Maze's End.

[Cardlist Title=Maze's End Enchantress - Journey into Nyx Standard | Patrick Chapin]

• Lands (25)
• 6 Forest
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 2 Breeding Pool
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 4 Maze's End
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Simic Guildgate
• 3 Temple Garden

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid
• 4 Courser of Kruphix
• 4 Eidolon of Blossoms
• 4 Nyx-Fleece Ram

• Spells (19)
• 2 Agoraphobia
• 4 Banishing Light
• 2 Detention Sphere
• 4 Sphere of Safety
• 4 Verdant Haven
• 3 Kruphix's Insight

Buy This Deck

After testing a few games with Eidolon of Blossoms in different shells, I can safely say that it's one of my favorite Standard cards in a very long time. I don't know if this is the correct shell for this kind of card, but I certainly hope it is. The inevitability presented by Maze's End combines very well with the plan of casting multiple Sphere of Safetys with a ton of enchantments in play.

The problem I see is that it's difficult to actually find the mana to activate Maze's End before the game goes long, and once the game goes long you're vulnerable to all manner of things. From random Revoke Existences on critical turns to getting burned out or even decked, it seems difficult to play this kind of game without some sort of Elixir of Immortality effect.

It's possible that this deck really wants to cut a color or two for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Helid, God of the Sun as a primary engine and win condition so that Kruphix's Insight is a powerful card advantage spell instead of one that potentially turns off your only win condition.

Suffice it to say, I'm very excited to see what kind of new strategies are enabled by Eidolon of Blossoms in any kind of shell, but I'm especially partial to the Sphere of Safety decks.

What happens when you take the most efficient creatures and disruption in Modern and jam them into the same deck? You end up with something that looks like the deck that Eisenkreuzkrieger took to a 4-0 finish in a Modern Daily Event. Grixis Delver is certainly not a newcomer to Modern, but it's been awhile since the deck was really on anyone's radar. Eisenkreuzkrieger's new list may change that.

[Cardlist title= Grixis Delver- Born of the Gods Modern | Eisenkreuzkrieger, 4-0 Modern Daily Event]

• Lands (19)
• 2 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 2 Darkslick Shores
• 2 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Steam Vents
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 2 Tectonic Edge
• 2 Watery Grave

• Creatures (17)
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 1 Grim Lavamancer
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 4 Young Pyromancer

• Spells (24)
• 1 Deprive
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Mana Leak
• 3 Remand
• 1 Runechanter's Pike
• 4 Serum Visions
• 2 Spell Snare

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Boom // Bust
• 1 Dispel
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 1 Pillar of Flame
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Terminate
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 2 Threads of Disloyalty

Buy This Deck

The big change here is Young Pyromancer. The format has shifted away from powerful midrange decks towards combo decks that don't really want to interact. That seems like a great format to be playing Dark Confidant and Young Pyromancer in. You have cheap threats which generate value over the course of a game backed by the fast clock of Delver of Secrets and powerful, repeatable disruption thanks you spells like Inquisition of Kozilek backed by Snapcaster Mage.

Modern is all about information right now, and this deck has the ability to obtain that information more readily than any other deck in the format, and backs that up with efficient threats, disruption, and burn to finish off the job. With such powerful tools available to it, it's wouldn't really be surprising to see this deck start to become more popular.

So far, the only god from Theros to see any play in Modern has been Thassa, God of the Sea. Even then, she's only found a home in fringe Merfolk decks and Restore Balance decks. Caleb Durward thinks that may change with the introduction of Journey into Nyx. Let's take a look as his BW Humans deck featuring Athreos, God of Passage.

[Cardlist title=Atheros Humans - Journey into Nyx Modern | Caleb Durward]

• Lands (22)
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 2 Swamp
• 5 Plains
• 4 Marsh Flats
• 2 Fetid Heath
• 4 Isolated Chapel
• 4 Godless Shrine

• Creatures (29)
• 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 3 Tidehollow Sculler
• 2 Ghost Council of Orzhova
• 2 Orzhov Pontiff
• 4 Champion of the Parish
• 4 Doomed Traveler
• 4 Cartel Aristocrat
• 3 Athreos, God of Passage
• 4 Dark Confidant

• Spells (9)
• 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 4 Path to Exile

Buy This Deck

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is criminally underplayed in a format as spell-based as Modern is. Thalia backed by powerful disruption and Dark Confidant, or in combination with a quick clock from Champion of the Parsih seems like a powerful basis for a deck. The problem with this style of Black-White midrange deck has always been closing out games. With Athreos in the format, that may not be a problem anymore.

Suddenly, these decks have a powerful attrition engine that either slowly drains their opponent to death or lets them maintain their board presence, even in the face of Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Bolt, and Abrupt Decay.

I like how this style of deck interacts with the spell-based decks in the format. Tons of disruption, cheap threats, and a powerful attrition engine at the top of the curve seems tough for many of the more midrangey combo-control decks to beat, and the disruption buys you enough time to present a reasonable clock against fast combo. My concern is that Orzhov Pontiff and Path to Exile aren't enough to beat Birthing Pod strategies, which remain a defining feature of Modern.

If that issue can be resolved, then I think it might be time to welcome a new deity into the Modern format.