I suppose Elspeth and Xenogas are decent options
to round out our theme week this week: legends
of Theros that aren't Gods. Xenogas is all about
gathering the party together. He can put a 2/2
with haste into play for free, or he can charge
up by granting you a blast of mana. The more
creatures you have, the more mana he makes, and
the mana he makes is likely to be spent on more
creatures.
If all you use Xenogas for is a mana engine that
also makes tokens, that'd be worth the price of
admission, but his Ultimate also lets you rip
creatures and land directly out of your deck to
add to the festivities. To do that, though, you
need to use him for mana at least three times
(hope you had good stuff to cast with him) and
honestly I'd rather have the Satyr token in most
cases. There's also the problem of the Ultimate
firing blind-- you don't usually know what's in
your top seven so while you're likely to get
good stuff, it's not a given.
Xenogas is a disappointing 'walker to topdeck,
as his charge-up move is only as good as what
else you've got in your hand. But still, a free
2/2 every turn is worth 2RG on its own, and the
possibility of cheating out far more expensive
fare will make Xenogas a worthwhile inclusion in
Monstrous decks and the like for a long time to
come.
Have any of you seen the art out there that
seems to depict Xenagos becoming a god?
Considering how powerful he is now, I dread to
think what's going to happen after his hinted
apotheosis. "Mana burst" abilities have a long
and controversial history, going back to Dark
Ritual - and most of those were one-and-one
affairs. I don't know if we really have the
vocabulary to describe a reusable one (the
closest thing I can remember are Bloom Tender
and Harabaz Druid, both of which people feel
confident they can kill). If that was all
Xenagos did, he'd already be scary - adding an
ability that lets you recover from sweepers and
an ultimate that draws you up to seven cards
almost feels excessive.
Today's card of the day is Xenagos, the Reveler
which is a Red and Green four mana planeswalker
with three loyalty. The +1 is a solid
source of mana acceleration, particularly in a
token heavy build, and combines well with X cost
spells or effects. The 0 is a useful
alternative to the +1 when mana isn't needed,
works to aid an alpha strike, and both supports
and buys time for the +1. The -6 is quite
strong, though doesn't mesh as well with X cost
creatures like the hydras or non-creature
sources of tokens. A deck using this is
likely going to focus on either mana
acceleration for large creatures, tokens, or X
casting and the value of the ultimate will vary
accordingly. Overall it is a solid card
with many potential decks to call home and
should be popular across formats.
In Limited the acceleration and creature
advantages this offer make it an easy first pick
in Booster or starting point in Sealed even with
the multicolor casting cost. Green is
usually easy to splash and Red has many other
cards worth splashing, so a deck using both
should be viable in most pools. The worst
case scenario is this produces at least one
2/2 with Haste for four mana and absorbs an
attack or effect from an opponent, which is fair
for the cost and anything more is what makes it
a top choice in the format.
This planeswalker is great source of mana if you
have any creatures on the board. That is another
thing that Xenagos can do for you, put creatures
on the board. His final ability is simply
amazing in a creature based deck! Remember a
land card called Gaea’s Cradle? Xenagos is the
R/G Planeswalker that can do the same thing!!!
This Planes walker has major upside and can make
a fast deck even faster! This Planeswalker
could fit perfectly into a lot of agro decks!
