Murders at Karlov Manor has featured a lot of intriguing yet strange spoilers thus far. For instance, a Mole God with the ability to completely take over the game with the right synergies was recently previewed. We also saw a new board wipe revealed that potentially has the ability to remove all basic Lands from your opponent’s mono-colored deck! Despite being a murder-mystery set, there’s a lot of wacky stuff going on.
Well, a very newly spoiled card definitely fits the mold as a bizarre five-color card that can be put into play for free. That’s right, Leyline of the Guildpact is here, and there are a number of cool things you can do with the card once it’s in play. Undoubtedly, though, the first thing that pops out is the card’s mana cost. Rather than having one pip of each color, this card is four mana, but with every mana symbol being a different hybrid symbol featuring green and another color. Even ignoring the rest of the text on the card, this alone can create some pretty interesting scenarios when it comes to Devotion.
Quick Burst of Devotion
Much like the other various Leylines that have been printed throughout MTG’s history, Leyline of the Guildpact allows you to put it into play for free at the beginning of the game if it’s in your opening hand. From there, it provides a continuous effect which, in this case, makes all of your non-Land permanents all colors and makes your Lands every basic Land type. This is a nice bonus for sure, which we will get to later, but what sets this Leyline apart from others in the past is that this one adds four Devotion to green right away.
This immediately makes
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
{T}: Add {C}.
{2}, {T}: Choose a color. Add an amount of mana of that color equal to your devotion to that color. (Your devotion to a color is the number of mana symbols of that color in the mana costs of permanents you control.)
jump out as a potential card to combo with Leyline of the Guildpact. Let’s say you start with Leyline in play. Turn one, you play
Elvish Mystic
Elvish Mystic
{T}: Add {G}.
. If you follow up next turn with Nykthos, you already have access to five mana as early as turn two! This means that you can cast powerful spells like
Cavalier of Thorns
Cavalier of Thorns
Reach
When this creature enters, reveal the top five cards of your library. Put a land card from among them onto the battlefield and the rest into your graveyard.
When this creature dies, you may exile it. If you do, put another target card from your graveyard on top of your library.
or
Nissa, Who Shakes the World
Nissa, Who Shakes the World
Whenever you tap a Forest for mana, add an additional {G}.
+1: Put three +1/+1 counters on up to one target noncreature land you control. Untap it. It becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with vigilance and haste that's still a land.
−8: You get an emblem with "Lands you control have indestructible." Search your library for any number of Forest cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
way ahead of schedule.
Why stop there, though. Leyline isn’t legendary, so if you happen to start with multiple copies in your opening hand, you can end up with 8 or more Devotion right off the bat. Obviously, this might be a bit of a magical Christmas land scenario that is rather difficult to achieve. After all, you need Leyline, Nykthos, and a payoff all within the first couple turns. That being said, there’s no denying how powerful adding four Devotion with no mana input can be when you have access to Nykthos.
Additionally,
Archdruid’s Charm
Archdruid’s Charm
Choose one —
• Search your library for a creature or land card and reveal it. Put it onto the battlefield tapped if it's a land card. Otherwise, put it into your hand. Then shuffle.
• Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. It deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
• Exile target artifact or enchantment.
could be a solid new addition to the deck that can either find Nykthos to pair with Leyline or find a big finisher to win the game with once you’ve assembled a big mana advantage. Outside of Nissa Who Shakes the World, the text box on Leyline of the Guildpact is mostly irrelevant for the Devotion deck and is therefore quite weak without Nykthos and a very poor draw later in the game. As such, it’s quite possible it doesn’t make the cut in the deck, but it’s something cool to try, nonetheless.
Read More: New Infinite MTG Land Combo Unexpectedly Appears in Top Cut!
Maximizing Non-Land Permanents
Outside of the Devotion aspect, Leyline does provide two unique abilities while in play. The first ability makes all of your non-Land permanents all colors. Importantly, this does not affect cards you own that aren’t on the battlefield, so a card like
All Sun’s Dawn
All Sun’s Dawn
For each color, return up to one target card of that color from your graveyard to your hand. Exile All Suns' Dawn.
won’t synergize with Leyline the way you want it to.
Where this does come into play, though, is alongside cards that get stronger or boost your other cards based on the number of colors your permanents are. Cards such as Sisay, Weatherlight’s Captain generally work best with legends of lots of different colors. With Leyline in play, though, even a legend like
The Irencrag
The Irencrag
{T}: Add {C}.
Whenever a legendary creature you control enters, you may have The Irencrag become a legendary Equipment artifact named Everflame, Heroes' Legacy. If you do, it gains equip {3} and "Equipped creature gets +3/+3" and loses all other abilities.
will immediately grow Sisay to 7 power, allowing you to maximize Sisay’s activated ability.
In a similar sense, cards like
Bloom Tender
Bloom Tender
Vivid — {T}: For each color among permanents you control, add one mana of that color.
and
Faeburrow Elder
Faeburrow Elder
Vigilance
This creature gets +1/+1 for each color among permanents you control.
{T}: For each color among permanents you control, add one mana of that color.
can freely tap for five mana, which is very strong.
Knight of New Alara
Knight of New Alara
Each other multicolored creature you control gets +1/+1 for each of its colors.
and
Jared Carthalion
Jared Carthalion
+1: Create a 3/3 Kavu creature token with trample that's all colors.
−3: Choose up to two target creatures. For each of them, put a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the number of colors it is.
−6: Return target multicolored card from your graveyard to your hand. If that card was all colors, draw a card and create two Treasure tokens.
Jared Carthalion can be your commander.
can provide massive boosts to your squad, and
Soul of Ravnica
Soul of Ravnica
Flying
{5}{U}{U}: Draw a card for each color among permanents you control.
{5}{U}{U}, Exile this card from your graveyard: Draw a card for each color among permanents you control.
can reliably draw five cards per activation. Even in a Singleton, 100-card format where you are less likely to have Leyline in your opening hand, it can still do a lot of cool things in an EDH setting.
Read More: Murders at Karlov Manor is the Most Blatant MTG Example of Power Creep
Free Prismatic Omen
The final aspect of Leyline of the Guildpact is its ability to make your Lands every basic Land type in addition to their other types. Just like
Prismatic Omen
Prismatic Omen
Lands you control are every basic land type in addition to their other types.
, this can be a big deal when built around. First of all, this ability helps make
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
This land enters tapped.
Whenever a Mountain you control enters, if you control at least five other Mountains, you may have this land deal 3 damage to any target.
{T}: Add {R}.
a more reliable kill condition.
Prismatic Omen has seen play in
Scapeshift
Scapeshift
Sacrifice any number of lands. Search your library for up to that many land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
decks before, allowing you to win the game with only 6 Lands in play as opposed to 7 (Valakut now counts as a Mountain too). Of course, with
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
Lands you control are every basic land type in addition to their other types.
in the mix, these types of cards are less necessary, but it’s worth mentioning, nonetheless.
Leyline of the Guildpact also works perfectly with Domain cards that care about the number of basic Land types among Lands you control. With Leyline in play, cards like Tribal Flames and Scion of Draco become extremely reliable. Leyline Binding can even be cast on turn 1 if Leyline of the Guildpact is in your opening hand. Once again, though, this aspect of the card may not be necessary in a competitive setting, given the presence of fetchable Triomes.
All in all, this card appears to be generating wildly mixed opinions. Some players are going as far as to call it banworthy for its potential in Pioneer Devotion decks (we doubt this to be the case), while others question if the card will see play in Devotion decks in any capacity. It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out, but the potential for busted starts with Leyline of the Guildpact is certainly there.
Read More: Murders at Karlov Manor Uncommon Creates Infinite Combo in Standard!