Nyxbloom Ancient – Theros Beyond Death MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

I know there are an awful lot of candidates, but Nyxbloom Ancient must surely be the frontrunner for “Most Commander-ish Card Ever Printed”. In a format that’s largely about big mana, the Ancient goes big and then goes bigger again, and then goes home on top of that, and goes big one more time. The questions must always be: how early can you get him out, and what do you do with all that mana? There’s something odd about using cheaper mana ramp cards to accelerate to a super-ramp card, and a possibility of using up all your resources to do so and having nothing to follow up with.

But remember, this guy is the Most Commander-ish Card Ever Printed, and that’s a format that thinks nothing of spending multiple turns ramping and hoarding cards in hand. Once he’s in play, the answer to the second question will sometimes be “anything at all you feel like”, and that’s plenty to make him a Commander staple for a long time to come. Barring some kind of shenanigans with Reanimate, I don’t know how well he’d fare in 1v1 formats; then again, Reanimate is a legit card.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
EDH/Commander: 5/5

Big, stupid, and absolutely absurd if you ever get the chance to untap with it, Nyxbloom Ancient is a fitting mythic rare if you ever wanted an amount of mana best described as “all”. Unlike most mana-boosting effects (like Caged Sun and Crypt Ghast), which give you a flat amount of mana on top of what you make normally, this triples all mana you make. Presuming you put this out for its price (seven mana), and you’re going to be untapping with at least twenty-one mana at your disposal.

It’s basically the epitome of an enchantment that sits there and needs to wait to pop off; it’s a seven mana creature with no protection built in. But if you untap with it, you should have it made, and you can also drop him onto a board state with mana available to you to go nuts then and there. It should be said that this is pretty much a casual/commander card alone, as there is a very low chance you’ll ever get to your next turn with this absolute unit alive against any well-built deck. But it’s a house in Commander, to be sure, and it’s likely going to be one of the most-played cards from Theros Beyond Death in the format as a near-auto include in every deck that is in green.

Constructed: 2 (you can do profane things if it lives, but the only way you’re going to really make this work is to cheat it in with something like Defense of the Heart, and I don’t think the support is there to make it work in Modern, Pioneer, or Standard)
Casual: 5
Limited: 2.75 (playable, but inefficient)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander: 4.75

Phat
Pack
Magic
YouTube

Hello everyone and welcome back to Pojo’s Card of the Day! Today we’re looking at the card players have been consistently fantasizing about with dreams of mana ramp.

Nyxbloom Ancient, or as I think they should have called him Lotusbloom Ancient, why? Because he turns all your lands into lotuses! So what is this beefy tree doing in the formats?

Johnny’s everywhere have been salivating at this card to fuel their fireball laden dreams, by the math of dropping this card you instantly have 21 mana next turn, and with a land drop that is 24 mana, just enough for a perfect kill with Expansion//Explosion to your opponents face for 20 damage! (if they didn’t gain any life) This kind of card is fine for a janky combo deck that’s slow enough at FNM.

In Limited, this card isn’t going to be much more than a 7 mana 5/5 with trample, as it’s going to be hard to capitalize on it afterwards, unless you have a ton of escape cards, but even then it feels like a win-more card.

Cube has a similar issue with this card, sure it’s great to be able to tap Sol Ring for (6) mana but where does it go from there? Chances are this is one of the few payoff cards you’ve drafted and if he’s not winning you the game on his own then you’ve expended precious resources to make a 5/5 with Trample and you can get much better bang for your buck than that.

Commander is where this card is going to shine where there’s plenty of ways to cheat him in to play and even more ways to make use of his triple mana source with cards like Helix Pinnacle or going infinite with Grim Monolith. (Tap add (9), untap for (4) rinse repeat.)

Ultimately this guy is the quintessential Johnny Mythic that at base level will pay for the pack, and with various multipliers double or even triple his value, much like the text on his card.

Constructed 2/5 – Live your best Johnny life and take him to the FNM where you can confuse your opponents for turns on end before blowing them out with a favorite X-Spell.

Commander 5/5 – Triple Mana and plenty of ways to cheat him out means good times and the best ways to get your mana rocks off!

Cube 1/5 – A payoff card is usually a prized piece of space in Cube Design that leads to winning the game, this is a Payoff card that doesn’t win.

Limited 2/5 – 7 Mana for a 5/5 in Limited isn’t a great trade. But he’s good pack value so pick him anyways.

Phat Pack Magic is a channel dedicated to Magic: the Gathering and creating awesome coverage of local events for formats like Cube, rare pack drafts, and now FNM Pioneer videos! Check it out at https://YouTube.com/PhatPackMagic