I'll be totally honest. I knew Iroas, Athreos,
Keranos, and Pharika were going to be gods, but
Kruphix blindsided me. I honestly thought
Prophet of Kruphix and Courser of Kruphix were
implying that Kruphix was a place, not a deity.
I completely missed that Agent of Horizons was
also a reference to Kruphix, though I think that
one was only meant to be realized with hindsight
anyway. As for the card itself, I'm a little
underwhelmed.
As much as I like green and blue in combo,
making good gold cards that are green and blue
has always been one of Magic's stumbling blocks.
The two colors do different things in different
ways, and combining them sometimes makes for
solid powerful cards, but they always end up
feeling like they're really one color with the
other color stapled on. What do "no maximum hand
size" and "you can float mana for days but it
becomes colorless" have to do with each other?
Are you going to tap all your lands for five
turns but never play a card, so you build up
extra cards in hand while you stockpile mana?
Sure, having lots of cards and mana is usually
good, but that's only because you USE those
things to win the game. Just sitting on it all
isn't impressive. What deck are you playing this
card in? If you've got a ton of draw spells,
sure, you'd want another Spellbook effect. The
ersatz Upwelling isn't bad either, especially on
an Indestructible chassis. But Spellbook and
Upwelling fit into two very different styles of
deck. If you're building a Commander deck around
Kruphix, you pretty much have to choose which of
his abilities you're focusing on exploting and
the other is just there as an extra. Was Kruphix
the last one they designed, and they had already
used all the best green and blue abilities on
the other deities?
Poor Kruphix isn't even all that good as a
creature. He's (she's?) a 4/7 for five. In
Green. I mean, you don't play any of the Gods of
Theros for their ability to attack and block,
but shouldn't the green ones be a little more
impressive than that?
Well, I guess I'll have to stop complaining
for a while that we don't see unique and quirky
card effects any more. For a while. This
particular effect is not as superficially
powerful as its famous ancestor, Upwelling. But
only superficially. Think how many spells don't
care about the color of the mana in your pool:
everything ranging from Fireball to Emrakul just
wants volume, not specific colors. And Kruphix
is even less fragile than Upwelling, which is
saying something in the context of enchantments.
Oh, and late in the game he might attack and
block. Seriously!
Today's card of the day is Kruphix, God of
Horizons which is a five mana Green and Blue
Indestructible god that is a 4/7 with Devotion
seven, removes your hand size limitation, and
unused mana in your pool becomes colorless
instead of emptying. This is not going to be
seen much in the usual Constructed formats, but
it will be key to Green/Blue decks in Commander
and possibly some Casual or Multiplayer builds.
The abilities to bank mana across turns and hold
extra cards in hand mesh very well with elements
of many Blue, Green, and Blue/Green cards
including Simic's core mechanics. Building up
your options and saving mana to use multiple
cards in one turn, or an X effect, can overwhelm
control decks and make for vicious alpha strikes
in Commander or Multiplayer. Overall a card that
not only supports a draw and build up theme in
Commander, but makes it a far more flexible and
dangerous threat.
In Limited any god is powerful, but having a
viable Blue and Green pool can be difficult and
may force this into the sideboard for Sealed in
favor of a build using at least one of the other
colors. The hand size effect is of minimal
benefit in the format, though the mana storage
can be useful for some acceleration in the late
game if more than five mana is needed. That is
generally too situational to be a major factor
and as this is a god more suited to being
designed around than most it is more of a rare
draft in Booster that can be playable as an
Indestructible with some minor effects.
Today rounds out our short week of cards that
just scream to be built around. Kruphix is a
card that doesn't work in just any blue/green
deck, but in a deck designed to use his unique
abilities he can be downright nuts.
First off, while turning Kruphix into a
creature is nice, it's not the most important
part of this card at all. He's clearly used for
some ridiculous mana ramp. Tap out for a couple
turns, build up crazy mana, then throw down some
huge X spell for the win. 24/24 Mistcutter
Hydra? Biomass Mutation all your weenies into
monsters? Epic Experiment to play a whole bunch
of instants and sorceries at once? There are a
lot of big plays you can make this this.
Despite the raw power that Kruphix brings,
his power is best displayed in a casual match.
In a constructed game, while you are storing up
mana for later, your opponent is doing something
right now with theirs - maybe including exiling
or otherwise removing Kruphix.
In limited, if you are playing blue/green,
he's probably worth playing, but the likelihood
of having the big spells to take advantage of
his ability goes way down. Maybe you have enough
other creatures to turn on his devotion? He's
fun, but not always going to be what you want.
Play with caution.
Multiplayer matches, much like casual, are
likely to give you the opportunity to do
something big, but the longer you store up mana,
the bigger the bulls-eye you put on yourself.
Kruphix, God of Horizons is not for beginners.
You really have to know how to use his ability
well in order to play him correctly. You have to
be able to see the possibilities, otherwise his
potential will be wasted.
Having no maximum hand size is fun, but
really only relevant in a deck with massive,
massive card draw. You could play Kruphix in a
deck with massive, massive card draw - it is
partly blue, after all - but that's not the main
appeal here. The main appeal is keeping your
leftover unused mana.
The problem I've always had with that kind of
ability is that, on paper, you as a player want
to spend as much of your mana each turn. That
way your turns are as efficient as possible. So
for instance on turn 2 you ideally want to spend
2 mana. If you have 4 land out on turn 4, you
want to spend it all on a 4 drop, not a 3 drop
as much. Sometimes you can't really help it, but
that's what you should be aiming for. Using your
resources to the most of their ability each
turn, and getting the most out of your mana.
Of course, Kruphix comes out turn 5 or so,
costing 5 mana. So now you're in more of a
mid-late game mindset. What crazy things could
you potentially do with him then? Well, think of
it like this. There are two main ways to use an
ability that saves your mana from turn to turn.
One is to simply play normally, cast your spells
and summon your creatures. But because you might
not use all of your mana every turn, Kruphix
becomes a sort of a mana bank. If you have 6
lands, and tap 4 of them to cast something,
Kruphix can hold on to that leftover 2 mana for
you for next turn, meaning you'd have at least 8
mana to play with next turn barring another land
drop. With this you could play out your hand
caster, play bigger threats, or what have you.
A good thing to combine Kruphix with are
variable cost spells. By that I mean things with
X in their cost. Hurricane, Blue Sun's Zenith,
things with Kicker or Strive, various Hydras.
You'll get a much bigger kick out of them with
Kruphix enhancing your mana pool.
What else could you do with him, though?
Well, the other option is to basically go
all-out. It's most risky, but the payoff is much
higher. What I mean is this: Say you cast him
turn 5. That's all your mana, fine. Turn 6 let's
say you now have 6 mana. Tap all of it... and
cast NOTHING. Turn 7, you now have 12 mana to
play around with. 12 mana is a lot of mana. 12
mana could be a game-winning amount of mana.
What could you do with the 10-13 mana that
Kruphix could easily grant you? I'll leave it to
your imagination, but perhaps now would be a
good time to befriend some Eldrazi. Or if you
really want to use that infinite hand thing,
Enter the Infinite is for you. If you want for
another turn, you could have around 20 mana.
Imagine an Apocalypse Hydra for 20 mana. It'd be
a 36/36.
But that's the flaw, in my mind, with cards
like this. Yes it can get you to 20 mana, which
is awesome and powerful and if you have the
right cards to play should win you the game. But
that requires 2-3 turns of casting NOTHING. And
this may surprise you, but your opponent will
NOT be casting nothing. He will be casting
something. And unless your board can hold off
whatever he's got, you're going to need to get
back into the game instead of using Kruphix, God
of Horizons to charge up your mana for one
powerful awesome super-spell.
On the plus side, you're able to charge up
your mana for one powerful awesome super-spell.
