The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan is a return to the Ixalan plane inMagic: The Gathering. The setting has plenty of popular creature types such as Dinosaurs, Merfolk, and Vampires, and plenty of support for all of those types.
There are 25 different multicolored cards in Lost Caverns Of Ixalan, with all of them having great power. Generally, since they are harder to cast since they need specific colored mana, their effects tend to be stronger as a tradeoff for being harder to cast. There are plenty of strong ones available, ranging from permanents to instant and sorceries that you can cast.
10Wail Of The Forgotten
3 For 1
Wail Of The Forgotten is a fantastic utility spell. It is slightly weakened by being a sorcery, but being able to get three potential effects for just two mana makes the trade-off worth it. While you can normally only choose one, if you have eight permanents in your graveyard you get all three.
Dimir (black/blue) has a lot of ways to get cards into your graveyard and cards that want to be in the graveyard in the first place. Even Wail Of The Forgotten can be used to dump cards directly into your graveyard to fuel future castings of other copies.
9Deepfathom Echo
Copy The Best You Have
Exploring is a great way to get a lot of cards into your hand and ensure you don’t draw into dead cards. Deepfathom Echo explores at the start of all of your combats, which can help push your card advantage by drawing lands or putting the top card on the bottom of your library if it isn’t something you need — or keeping it on top if it is something you do.
While the exploring is solid, Deepfathom Echobeing able to become a copy of a different creatureis the main attraction. It copies everything about that creature, so if it has a strong effect when it attacks, you may double up on those attack triggers.
8Saheeli, The Sun’s Brilliance
Making Copies Every Turn
Saheeli, The Sun’s Brilliance is a brilliant two-mana creature that can create copies of any other creature. In decks with powerful enter-the-battlefield triggers, Saheeli is a way to double up on them by creating a copy with haste.
Since Saheeli only costs two mana both to cast and for its ability, it is easy to get enough mana to take advantage of it. While you need specifically red and blue, playing more than two colors in most formats is possible. It also gives you even more options to copy like Atrxa, Grand Unifier, and Etali, Primal Conqueror.
7Itzquinth, Firstborn Of Gishath
Tiny Dinosaur, Big Power
For just two mana, getting a 2/3 creature with haste is incredible. In Dinosaur decks, it becomes even stronger as you can deal massive amounts of burn damage when they enter the battlefield. Since Dinosaur decks have a lot of ways to ramp early on, having the mana to pay for Itzquinth’s effect is easy to accomplish.
Even if you’re not using it for its effect, it’s great in aggro decks that want to win as fast as possible. Whencombined with a card like Bard Class, you can even cast it for free to make for more explosive turns.
6Abuelo, Ancestral Echo
Protective Blink
Abuelo, Ancestral Echo is a great creature tosupport blink strategies- blink being effects that cause a creature to be exiled before returning to the battlefield. Abuelo has protection to make it harder to remove, and flying makes it more of a nuisance to block.
While Abuelo likely won’t fit into Spirit-related strategies, it’s a great choice for blink strategies as most cards only can blink one card a turn. So long as you have the mana to dump into Abuelo, Ancestral Echo’s effect, you can use this effect as much as you want.
5Squirming Emergence
Reanimate Any Nonland Permanent
Squirming Emergence is aninteresting reanimation spell, as the card it can put onto the battlefield from the graveyard has to have a mana value that is equal to or less than the permanents in your graveyard. In self-mill decks, it is rather easy to make it so any spell can be reanimated.
In a deck like Abazan (green/black/white) Greasefang, Squirming Emergence becomes extra powerful as it gives another way to reanimate a permanent without having to rely on the namesake card. Worst case scenario, Squirming Emergence can reanimate a creature with a lower mana value.
4Molten Collapse
Upgraded Classic
Molten Collapse is a strictly better Dreadbore that sees play in the formats it is legal in (with Dreadbore able to destroy any creature or planeswalker). Molten Collapse takes it a step further by adding extra utility to destroy a one mana permanent (in some cases both if any permanent was put into a graveyard).
The power of Dreadbore has been seen in formats like Pioneer, and Molten Collapse will immediately replace it as the extra options available while keeping the original effect make it worth putting into any deck that would normally play Dreadbore.
3Bartolomé Del Presidio
Free Sacrifice Outlet
Bartolomé del Presidio is a free sacrifice outlet that lets you choose between a creature or artifact to give it a +1/+1 counter. While this effect is very simple, it is very strong as you can use the effectso long as you have something to sacrifice.
Generally, you are restricted to only sacrificing creatures or need to pay a mana cost, but Bartolomé del Presidio lets you have a variety of options to sacrifice. There is no shortage of ways to flood the battlefield with sacrifice fodder, making it that much easier to take full advantage of this card.
2Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar
Shut Down Interaction
Shutting down your opponents' ability to cast spellsduring your turn is very strong. This prevents them from using counterspells against your spells and using instant-speed removal to take care of problem creatures. This is what makes Kutzil, Malament Exemplar so good.
It is easy to cast, only requiring three mana, and once it hits the battlefield the only way to remove it is by using removal at sorcery speed. Kutzil’s static effect would be amazing on its own but comes with the added bonus of drawing cards if your creatures have any stat boosts on them.
1The Ancient One
Strongest Two-Drop
The Ancient One has an amazing statline at 8/8 for just two mana. The tradeoff is that you need eight or more permanents in your graveyard, but in self-mill decks, this is very easy to accomplish. The Ancient One can even turn itself online with the effect to draw and discard a card.
This card can act as an amazing attacker, or can be used to mill your opponent out of the game. It sets up your graveyard in reanimator strategies, all while setting up a board presence that needs immediate answering.
