After reviewing all the of the cards in Eldraine I thought it could be helpful to make a list of Masterpiece/Mythic chase cards and Rare/Uncommon/Common chase cards. I broke it down into the divisions based on rarity and then within the breakdowns also give suggestions for cards that will shine in different tiers of play (copper, silver, gold, platinum). Let me know if you think I missed anything and if so, why you think it should be there too. Happy hunting!!
Altar of Dementia… will combo with Gaea’s Revenge, Killer Instinct, Deadbridge Chant… all standard cards. Will probably be new meta combo. Add Lord of Extinction for legacy.
I’ll have to play with the Altar to see if I like it, but honestly it doesn’t look very good to me. You have to lose the creature and the support exiles the creature. I find that most opponents don’t have a good way to destroy a creature like Gaea, and once I get a Gaea down, the path to victory tends to be pretty easy, so I don’t want to lose it.
Altar of Dementia might find a place in legacy, but it’s kinda poop for the most part in Standard. If you have GR, Killer Instinct, and Deadbridge Chant . . . what do you need Altar for? KI will still just bring one creature from library into play and DBC will still bring one from GY to hand with full mana. It doesn’t matter if you fill your GY with creatures since there’s a built in bottle neck.
In legacy, you can leverage Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth or have some fun Emblam dudes, but it will still require having 1 creature in play, Altar in play, and then losing a creature (along with whatever other combo pieces go with it to fill a massive GY.
Maybe it’ll find a place with turbomoeba decks or with Kaya doing a Blood for Bones type deck with weenies. I dunno, I just think it will take a lot of work to make it do stuff.
You forgot that GR’s power is 16. So basically 32 cards go to GY per turn. So go figure add on cards that can boost this core combo standard or legacy.
About KI and chant combo… at least 1 GR will permanently be in the battlefield (since there is a high probability that a GR will be in your graveyard per turn (16 cards dumped). This combo is potentially broken.
Altar is going to be a very good card for a lot of new and old mechanics. It’s colorless, and really cheap. No one should ever build a kaya deck without it.. and it’s a GY return deck must include, great for beacon bolt, etc. it might actually make pneumonic betrayal a good card too. There are several decks I’ve wanted to build where you want to load up your opponents GY… and there is not a ton of reliable ways to do that. It’s good.
I dunno, I’ll experiment with it for sure, but I’m not as confident as you guys that it’ll be as effective as desired. I think if it triggered each time you cast a creature it’d be insane and warrant the hype, but using two of your own cards just to fuel the Altar and still needing to then do something feels like a big ask. Drowned Secrets works for bolt, because you just slap together a looper and slide in Drowned Secrets and then just let things cast and bolt away.
You either have to loop summon and kill creatures repeatedly in the same turn, or do it over time. KI definitely pairs well with this, but outside of KI you’re constantly giving up board presence and damage to put cards into the GY. Maybe something like with Ral, Ball Lightning, Thunderkin Awakener, and Bolt would be a nice synergy without needing to give anything up.
I fully agree with this. I’m excited to try playing with the Altar as it seems cool, but it feels more like a fun card or a win more card to me than a card that I would seriously want to use in competitive events.
I don’t think it’s a win more card, you need to build around it to make it effective. Win more is more like a card you throw into a deck that works without it.
Altar will be an excellent card for good turn over turn decks that are more control oriented. That’s going to be the new reality for effective standard event decks moving forward since they are moving more toward “gain half mana” cards rather than “gain x mana cards” or “gain full mana” cards.
I think the problem with it is that it relies on both a creature dying and that creature’s power.
A lot of the funky lower cost creatures that immediately come to mind like Stitcher’s Supplier, Fleshbag Marauder, Glowspore Shaman, and even Cavalier of Night which I use together in a Kaya deck that also runs Gruesome Menagerie and Proclamation of Rebirth (this is the kind of GY control shell I’d want to stuff Altar in), are not big enough to be particularly impressive.
The bigger creatures which would really fill the GY cost a lot to cast, and then instead of beating face, you’re killing them for GY fuel. Although I do wonder if Yarok will trigger Altar cause that is a really strong pairing if it does. Yarok + Gisa and Geralf + Altar is a healthy synergy for sure. Then Primevals Glorious Rebirth and go on an infinite loop.
I dunno, like I said, I’ll have to experiment, but Altar has a lot of requirements.
I will say that I agree that we are likely to see more control decks and other midrangey things.
I’d say the most creative part of the altar lies in the ability to fill oponents graveyard (there are already very reliable ways to fill our own one).
Obviously it can work to trigger the “mill” condition … But the best way to break it is probably to use it with angrath’s third.
Of course killer instinct is the most obvious way to sacrifice your own creatures without much effort … But red has other interesting options like lightening ball, that auto destructs and can be made recursive pretty easily. (Too bad it will leave standard with eldraine though)
So I wasn’t sold on it because of the need to kill your own creatures and there wasn’t a good way to do that without drawing and casting a lot of stuff, but then I saw Rankle, Master of Pranks. He changes the game and really makes Altar of Dementia do its job.
Lochmere Serpent is hotness here as long as you don’t use Kaya’s 1st abiilty. I really like these creatures popping out of the GY, Lochmere can bring itself, Cauldron + Chant gives me 2 more and then Rankle kills them lol. But Angel of Grace is tech. I’ll keep tweaking, but so far this is a strong Kaya build.
