Top 8 Constructed Cards from Throne of Eldraine

8. Fabled Passage

In a Standard format where our precious Checklands have rotated, we’re stuck with Shocks and the enemy-colored Temples—and that’s it. Mana is worse than what we’ve been used to, and Wizards is emphasizing mono-colored strategies with lots of triple pips and even more double pips in mana costs. Even last format, aggro decks tended to stay in one color, and that’s going to continue to be true in ELD Standard. Slower decks, such as ramp, big midrange, and control, will continue to need to dip into multiple colors to overpower their opponents (and the diversity of threats in the current format) in the late game.

That’s where Fabled Passage comes in! Fabled Passage is surprisingly easy to set up the way you want. It’s usually either a Turn 1 Evolving Wilds, which is fine since you’re not casting one-mana spells anyways, or it’s a Prismatic Vista on Turn 4 and beyond. Alongside lands like the Castles and the mono-colored Checklands, Prismatic Vista fetching basics is even more relevant. And, finally, it allows Golos/Field decks to play a land that grabs them twice as many zombies.

7. Edgewall Innkeeper

This unassuming character is actually the lynchpin that holds the Green-based Adventure decks together in Standard. If you haven’t seen them yet, Adventure decks, either GW or GB, seek to build an insurmountable advantage by leveraging Edgewall Innkeeper alongside Adventure cards that are intrinsically two-for-ones, and sometimes playing things like Lucky Clover to go even harder on the value. This style of deck is one we’ve seen before in Standard in the form of Constellation back in 2015. Fundamentally, they’re engine decks that require a critical mass of resources to get going, but once they do, they’re nigh impossible to stop. Innkeeper being only a single mana means that, if you play it turn one, you’ll usually get at least a card off it, and sometimes even more. Adventure decks may or may not be good as the metagame shifts around, but I’d be shocked to see any run fewer than four copies of the Innkeeper.

6. Fires of Invention

Unfair cards only ever see lots of play or no play. Fires of Invention is going to fall into the first category. Once you untap with Fires, it essentially triples your mana. You get to cast two free spells and then, if you’re Inventing correctly, spend your mana on activated abilities. The current favorite configuration abuses Cavalier of Flame alongside either Niv-Mizzet Reborn or Cavalier of Gales and Drawn from Dreams to find the combo. Once you cast both, you haste everything and go to town. It’s about as close to a combo kill as you’ll get in this post-Nexus of Fate format.

5. Wicked Wolf

On its own, Wicked Wolf is a powerful card. It’s not too far from a Ravenous Chupacabra with better stats, but once you put it alongside Food generators, it . Having Food lying around thanks to Gilded Goose or Oko, Thief of Crowns turns the Wolf into an incredibly difficult threat to answer. Alongside Food, it survives sweepers, dodges Swift End, kills Questing Beast, and generally rules the battlefield. Even the creature type is relevant; if you’re playing the Wolf alongside Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, you get to pick off two creatures! Of course, like Oko later on this list, the presence of Wolf in Standard is heavily contingent on whether a fair metagame develops, which doesn’t look promising given the prevalence of Golos/Field decks.

4. Murderous Rider//Swift End

Hero’s Downfall was format-defining. With powerful Planeswalkers like Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and creatures with diverse sets of power, toughness, and mana cost seeing play (Goblin Rabblemaster, Mantis Rider, Siege Rhino, Wingmate Roc), Downfall was a must. It dealt with everything for a reasonable cost at instant speed. Since then, we’ve had many spells that hit either creatures or planeswalkers, but only a few have been hits (Vraska’s Contempt comes to mind when Rekindling Phoenix was in the format alongside Chandra, Torch of Defiance). Swift End // Murderous Rider promises to end the drought. Losing two life is a minor downside, but being able to cast a 2/3 Lifelink afterward is a significant upside. Furthermore, while I understand why Wizards chose to have the Rider shuffle into the library when it dies (avoid returning it repeatedly and avoid confusion over casting it from exile for a second time), it does raise the possibility that a control deck could win by looping Murderous Riders a la Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. While nowhere near as inherently broken a play pattern as Teferi, it’s certainly something to keep in mind.

Mana efficiency is incredibly important, and Murderous Rider being able to answer the three-mana War of the Spark planeswalkers at-rate alongside much more expensive threats ensures this card a slot in most black decks during its time in the format.

3. Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time marks the first card on our list that will see play in formats older than Standard. While it’s certainly a fantastic pickup for Standard, providing increased consistency on hitting land drops, colors, and creatures, and allowing for players to keep a wider range of opening hands, it’s even more powerful in Modern. The math around swapping out Sylvan Scrying for Once Upon a Time seems to support it, ensuring Turn three Tron more frequently. Additionally, in the late game, Sylvan Scrying often grabs redundant copies of Tower or picks up a Sanctum of Ugin, but Once Upon a Time can dig for a threat instead. Of course, this may encourage Tron to play more copies of Wurmcoil Engine or Ulamog, which is a trade-off Tron players will have to weigh. Once Upon a Time also allows Green-based Eldrazi decks to find Eldrazi Temple more consistently. An opening hand with two Stirrings was often keepable, but it was slow. A hand with a Stirrings and a OUaT, on the other hand, looks far more busted. As people explore ways to abuse a spell that is free on the most important turn of the game and a two-mana Ancient Stirrings the rest of the game, I expect we’ll be seeing more of this Green instant. (Did I mention it’s an instant?! Could even be cast in response to Inquisition on your opponent’s first turn!)

2. Oko, Thief of Crowns

Oko, Thief of Crowns does a lot. First off, he’s got a lot of loyalty. Playing a three-mana, six-loyalty planeswalker on Turn two or three of a game of Magic puts your opponent on the back foot immediately. Second, why in the world are both of his first two abilities upticks? Oko can churn out a 3/3 every other turn, going up and up the whole time. On the play, he can make a Food and then swap it for your opponent’s first creature of the game. The play patterns of an early Oko by themselves demonstrate how powerful this card is.

But it doesn’t end there. As games go longer, players play more land and have access to more expensive, powerful spells. Many of these spells are big creatures with powerful abilities or powerful artifacts like The Great Henge. Casting anything like that into an Oko is a joke. For free, Oko can eliminate it. Games that Oko takes over feel like a joke; nothing your opponent does matters when you can choose to turn any of their bombs into a 3/3. There’s nothing they’re drawing to anymore that can save them. The damage is typically already done by the time they find an answer to Oko, if they manage to even do that.

Finally, Oko should not be ignored in Modern either. In particular, Urza Thopter-Sword has leaned on a combination of Assassin’s Trophy and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas post-board in order to present a different angle of attack (make 5/5’s) and to answer opposing hate. The fact that Oko does both while ticking up for only three mana makes him incredibly appealing. It’s worth testing at the very least, and I have high hopes for Oko in both Standard and Modern.

1. Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Beware this Lady of the Lake. Emry promises to supercharge artifact decks in Modern. Just throwing a couple copies into the current builds of Urza seems completely reasonable; she helps to grind, synergizes with Goblin Engineer, and might even find a Sword. But the current build of Urza is not built to make the most of her. Instead, look for decks combining Urza, Jeskai Ascendancy, zero-mana artifacts, token generators like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Sai, Master Thopterist, and even Kethis, the Hidden Hand. If you’ve noticed Paradoxical Outcome and Mox Amber creeping up in price over the last week, this is why. Stay tuned; KCI might not be quite so dead after all.

Ryan Normandin (@RyanNormandin) is a grinder from Boston who has lost at the Pro Tour, in GP & SCG Top 8's, and to 7-year-olds at FNM. Despite being described as "not funny" by his best friend and "the worst Magic player ever" by Twitch chat, he cheerfully decided to blend his lack of talents together to write funny articles about Magic.