When I first learned to play Magic at summer camp, there were two kinds of players: those who played five-color-all-my-good-cards and those who picked exactly one color. Given my disposition for building greedy five-color decks in every format I play, I think it should be obvious which camp I fell into. Unfortunately, at that point in our Magic careers, none of us had figured out that nonbasics like dual lands existed yet. We’d bought primarily packs from Mercadian Masques and core sets, and all the duals we’d seen from our limited exposure to Odyssey and Invasion blocks were the likes of Terminal Moraine and Seafloor Debris.

Then, one person among us figured out that online retailers were a thing, and the arms race began. Innocently enough at first, one person starting upgrading his Burn deck, maxing out on Volcanic Hammers, Blazes, and Ghitu Fires. The five-color players fired back by picking up Elfhame Palaces and Coastal Towers to splash Embolden and Reviving Dose. Given the sudden and substantial upgrade to the quality of our mana, five-color decks became enormously dominant in our group. Pretty soon, we’d abandoned basics of any kind, focusing purely on tap lands and pain lands to cast our awesome spells. That’s when I built my first deck designed to break open the meta.

[Cardlist title=New Frontiers ? Casual | Carlos Gutierrez]

• Spells (36)
• 4 Deep Reconnaissance
• 3 Allied Strategies
• 1 Concentrate
• 2 Prophetic Bolt
• 4 Worldly Counsel
• 3 New Frontiers
• 4 Rampant Growth
• 2 Recoup
• 4 Burning Wish
• 4 Tribal Flames
• 1 Urza's Rage
• 2 Legacy Weapon
• 2 Death Grasp

• Lands (24)
• 4 Shivan Oasis
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 4 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 7 Forest
• 1 Grand Coliseum

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This deck was enormously powerful in a “metagame” in which people played few to no basics. Suddenly, New Frontiers was a one-sided ramp spell that set up all kinds of brutal domain shenanigans. It became easy to use New Frontiers to set up an overwhelming mana advantage that allowed you to churn through your deck, fire off enormous X spells, or dominate the game with Legacy Weapon.

It didn’t take people long to figure out that playing just a handful of basics made New Frontiers symmetric again and took away a large portion of the power of the deck, but I’ve been wanting to replicate the power of one-sided New Frontiers. I’ve jumped through all kinds of crazy hoops with the likes of Kodama's Reach and Perilous Forays; I’ve done silly tricks with Oracle of Mul Daya and library manipulation. It’s close, but it’s not quite the same. Then came Magic Origins, where Wizards was kind enough to do the work for me:

Animist's Awakening, Chris Rahn

This card is absurd. There are so many crazy things that I can imagine doing it, and the very thought of casting it takes me all the way back to my very first cohesive brew. It certainly helps that this card slots directly into my all-time favorite deck. The ability to tear through your deck and hit a pile of nonbasics, with the potential to put them into play untapped, is absolutely incredible, and it has the potential for abuse across many formats. I want to break down just a few of my ideas in Modern, Legacy, Commander, and Casual. Let’s take a look at exactly what this card has the potential for.

12 Post Awakening ? Legacy | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (1)
• 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

• Spells (31)
• 4 Animist's Awakening
• 4 Sylvan Scrying
• 4 Ancient Stirrings
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Preordain
• 2 Elephant Grass
• 4 Exploration
• 3 Explore
• 2 Pithing Needle

• Lands (28)
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1 Karakas
• 3 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Tropical Island
• 2 Forest
• 4 Cloudpost
• 4 Glimmerpost
• 4 Vesuva
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Dark Depths
• 2 Eye of Ugin

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12 Post has been a deck in Legacy for some time now as a Cloudpost control deck that buys an enormous amount of time with Glimmerpost and that closes the game out by taking infinite turns with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with Karakas. This deck tries to accelerate that plan by using cantrips and Sylvan Scryings in conjunction with Exploration to assemble a critical mass of mana early on in the game. If necessary, you can try to find a Boseiju, Who Shelters All against Force of Will decks.

What about in Modern? We could try something similar using Urzatron Lands. The problem with that is that there’s a much lower cap on the amount of mana you can generate with ’Tron lands as opposed to Cloudposts. It’s also possible that this could be a backup Primeval Titan for a deck like Amulet Bloom. However, between Summoner's Pact and Hive Mind, that deck has plenty of Titans. I’m imagining a more proactive take on a deck that’s already looking to resolve an expensive sorcery with a bunch of lands in play. I’m thinking Scapeshift.

Animist Scapeshift ? Modern | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 4 Oracle of Mul Daya

• Spells (26)
• 4 Prismatic Omen
• 4 Serum Visions
• 3 Telling Time
• 4 Explore
• 4 Search for Tomorrow
• 4 Scapeshift
• 3 Animist's Awakening

• Lands (26)
• 4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Island
• 4 Stomping Ground
• 4 Steam Vents
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Forest
• 1 Mountain

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We’ve seen builds of Scapeshift in this style, but not such a linear build. Prismatic Omen variants featuring some number of Oracle of Mul Daya and Primeval Titan are not unheard of, the but the addition of Animist's Awakening gives you a way to more effectively use fetch lands as additional Lightning Bolts on your combo turns. It also means that you have the possibility of using Boseiju, Who Shelters All, either in the main deck or out of the sideboard.

Standard is a little harder. The bright side is that you could use Mage-Ring Network to ramp up your Animist's Awakenings. The bad news is that, outside of scry lands, the only spell land that you could reasonably hit off these is Foundry of the Consuls. Even if you were able to somehow hit and activate all four, you’ve still only made eight Thopters. That said, I can’t wait to see what Battle for Zendikar brings. We’ve been promised a cycle of nonbasics already, and there are bound to be other awesome spell lands to explore. Unfortunately, though, for now, we have to move along to more casual formats. Here’s something that I’ve started piecing together to play against newer opponents who haven’t yet learned to respect the value of lands:

Maze Post ? Casual | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Oracle of Mul Daya

• Spells (27)
• 4 Explore
• 3 Urban Evolution
• 4 Animist's Awakening
• 4 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
• 4 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 4 Expedition Map
• 4 Brainstorm

• Lands (29)
• 4 Maze's End
• 4 Cloudpost
• 4 Glimmerpost
• 3 Vesuva
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 3 Simic Guildgate
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 2 Deserted Temple

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Nothing fancy here—there’s just an enormous pile of Explore effects and powerful lands. The game plan here is to hit a ton of land drops using Cloudpost and Glimmerpost to buy time, activate Maze's End freely while still casting spells, and set up an enormous Animist's Awakening. The power in this deck is that you can easily Animist's Awakening for upward of 10, which means you’re likely to hit Maze's End and enough mana to activate it. You can even hit Maze's End plus Deserted Temple to double up on your Maze's End activations. If you hit enough Gates, it’s not unreasonable to just win the game on the spot.

Commander is the format that I think this card is best set up to be super-busted. For a very long time, we’ve had plenty of ramp spells like Explosive Vegetation and Skyshroud Claim for decks that are heavy on basics or Forest duals like Stomping Ground. If you wanted to ramp with nonbasics, you were stuck with inefficient, random, or conditional effects like Reap and Sow, Recross the Paths, and Tempt with Discovery. Animist's Awakening makes you do a little more work to make sure that the top of your deck contains the lands that you want, but if you do that, the card can be almost free. Cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, and Sylvan Library go a long way toward making sure that you’re getting your mana’s worth, while Vampiric Tutor and the like can help ensure that you hit your key lands.

Perhaps most important, Commander is the format in which it’s easiest to cast Animist's Awakening for the most enormous number. Between Cabal Coffers, Mirari's Wake, Doubling Cube, and other powerful ramp effects, it’s not unreasonable to cast Awakening for more than 20 and have all the lands come into play untapped.

But why stop there? I want to touch on a deck that pushes this card even further without having to do any additional work. Forget mana-neutral. We can go way bigger.

Sasaya, Orochi Animist ? Commander | Carlos Gutierrez

• Commander (0)

• Lands (53)
• 42 Snow-Covered Forest
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Terrain Generator
• 1 Deserted Temple
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Blasted Landscape
• 1 Petrified Field
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Thawing Glaciers
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Eye of Ugin

• Lands Please (21)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Mulch
• 1 Journeyer's Kite
• 1 Life from the Loam
• 1 Rowen
• 1 Horizon Spellbomb
• 1 Sprouting Vines
• 1 Lair Delve
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Gaea's Bounty
• 1 Krosan Tusker
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Realms Uncharted
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Seek the Horizon
• 1 Journey of Discovery
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Animist's Awakening

• Business (25)
• 1 Tooth and Nail
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Tower of Fortunes
• 1 Nostalgic Dreams
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental
• 1 Nemata, Grove Guardian
• 1 Verdeloth the Ancient
• 1 Primal Command
• 1 Ant Queen
• 1 Hooded Hydra
• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1 Citanul Flute
• 1 Planar Portal
• 1 Restock
• 1 Woodland Guidance
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Hydra Broodmaster
• 1 Genesis Hydra
• 1 Lifeblood Hydra
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Orochi Hatchery

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That’s not the end either! Animist's Awakening can still hit important spell lands like Buried Ruin and Eye of Ugin that give you something to do with the absurd quantities of mana it allows you to generate. Suddenly, awkward cards Planar Portal, Tower of Fortunes, and other enormously expensive threats are perfectly reasonable things to activate and still cast Lifeblood Hydra for 30.

This kind of degeneracy is only scratching the surface of what Animist's Awakening is capable of. This is a card that I’m going to brewing with for a long time to come, and I’m certain we’re going to see it do crazy things across all kinds of decks and formats at some point in the next few years. Battle for Zendikar can’t possibly come soon enough.