Welcome all to the Daily Dose of Core Set 2020 where today I’m going to be talking about 3 new cards that are sure to bring out your dark side. I’ve always been wanting a Mono-Black deck in Standard to be prominent, but sometimes you just need the right cards printed to make that happen. Today I’ll talk about one that wants you to play an all-Swamp manabase (with maybe some Cabal Stronghold’s for fun). I like lands that make you figure out what deck to put them in, or even ones that you might build a deck around. Core Set 2020 brings one of those lands for us to play. Did you ever play with Vampiric Tutor and wish that card was in Standard? Well, we don’t quite have that, but we have something fun to play with.
First off, I want to talk about that tutoring card. Here is Scheming Symmetry.
A one mana tutor that comes with a potential drawback. That’s right, I said potential. True your opponent gets to search for a card as well. It’s also true that without any other card draw, they are going to be getting to use their card first. Sometimes there will be scenarios where you just need an answer for the following turn, and you don’t care what card your opponent gets into their hand. As for those two pesky drawbacks, let’s look at ways to stop that from being a problem. If you need to use your card first, you need to find a way to give Scheming Symmetry flash. The best cards for that are Teferi, Time Raveler and the newly reprinted Leyline of Anticipation. These will allow you to play Scheming Symmetry during your opponent’s turn, allowing you to get your key card before them. If you don’t have those as an option though, you can find a way to also remove the top card of your opponent’s library. This can be done through cards like Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or using an activation from Ashiok, Dream Render.
The next card has an ability I like to call (not the actual mechanic name) Swampfall. Here is Dread Presence.
Talk about one of the best Hill Giant creatures that we’ve seen. Every Swamp you have in your hand and every one that you draw going forward turns into pure value. You can get some extra cards by paying some life or drain any target for 2 life. That second ability will help mitigate the loss of life from your first choice. No matter what you decide to choose, you will be happy when you draw a Swamp off the top of your deck. Dread Presence will definitely be a lightning rod for your opponent’s removal, so depending on the deck, you might want to wait until turn 5 so you can play a Swamp the same turn that you cast it to make sure it at least replaces itself.
The last card I want to talk about isn’t a Black Card, but it does create some sweet Zombies. Here is Field of the Dead.
You might be thinking that it will be hard to get 7 different lands onto the battlefield, but I’m telling you it’s not! Every Esper deck already plays 8 different types of lands with Field of the Dead being the ninth. Some Grixis decks already play 9 different types of lands, which will give you a greater chance of getting some 2/2 Zombies onto the battlefield. If you are every able to get multiple Field of the Dead onto the battlefield, it’s almost like a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle situation going on. Who knows, maybe there is a Standard Scapeshift deck that can take advantage of this. If you Scapeshift for 8 lands, with two of them being Field of the Dead, that means you land a mean 16 Zombies onto the battlefield. That should be enough for the victory I would hope.
If these three cards don’t get your deckbuild wheel turning, I’m not sure what will. An already open Standard format could have some more sweet decks coming its way. Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of Core Set 2020. Join me again tomorrow as I talk about some new multicolor cards that will get Standard and Commander players excited!
