Cards to brew around in Ikoria

Hello, beautiful people of AETHERHUB.

Yes, it's this special time in the year where a new Set is upon us - IKORIAAA :)

For me, as a brewer and limited fan, this is always a super exciting time and if I could I would love to draft and brew at the same time so I wouldn't have to make a decision what I'm going to dive into first.

I'm sure some of you might know what I'm talking about ;)

Most of the times I decide to play a few Sealed events to get into the feeling of the new Set, the new Mechanics, and the first kind of deck building experience. I think it's a great way to fill up your Collection with the new cards too...

But after some drafts, I´m too excited and have to start brewing around all the amazing new Cards and see what they can do.

So let's talk about the most exciting Cards to brew around in IKORIA.

 

In every Set, there are some obvious cards you can brew around as they already follow a specific strategy/synergy/ability.

In Ikora this is some abilities like Vigilance or Menace for example:

Vigilance:

  

These cards are all based on the Vigilance ability. I'm curious, will someone be able to make a viable build with them?

The first card I thought about adding to this was

I just gave it the first try and it didn't work out very well - even though the tap and life gain sounds like a good pay off, I feel the maybe most important pay off in card advantage is missing which cards like 

and had.

Menace:

and there is even more. 

Raptor looks like a huge payoff and I could see someone finding a strong aggro build with him as the key card.

Same as Ajani there is to just give all your creatures Menace so you can ad strong creatures that don't need Menace themselves to work in the build.

Another option could be "Sacdos" where Tentative Connection seems to have a huge impact 1 Mana Act of treason - that seems strong to me.

I´m curious if someone will make menace a top tear Deck? I think the potential is there...

Maybe the best way is to not fully commit to the ability but just including some cards to already strong builds...

 

Next, we have the two specific Ikoria abilities in Cycling and Mutate well and somewhat there is a third in Companion.

For Cycling:

The card which stands out the most for me is

I´ve already been running into a build on the ladder. Let's See what Cycling can do as a build around. Cycling is always a good ability on a card anyways it makes especially expansive cards a viable option to add to your deck.

I would love to see it more on lands as well ;)

Mutate:

Mutate seems to be a generally strong Ability in Constructed and Limited, as build around or just as an addition to already strong builds.

The Cards which stand out the most for me are:

this card looks really exciting to me and I bet there will be some wild brews breaking this card ;)

and seem to go very well together - I'm quite sure we will see some strong Grave builds this Meta and I´m super excited for it. Maybe even something like 4C. could be a thing ;)  

All the other Apexes are strong mutate cards as well, but not really a build around it seems to me. Same with these:

strong removal is always viable, its just important to run a cheap option to mutate on to this card ;)

the Same thing here it's just a very strong ability in this meta I guess - no need to build around I bet this card will be in most of all green playing Sideboards.

Very important to make Mutate a consistent threat are the cheap enablers such as:

and both of them have strong abilities as well and I bet my ... you will see them anywhere in this upcoming meta.

Keep in mind that you can only mutate on non-Human creatures which is especially important in limited where you need to pic cheap creatures to mutate on to make mutate a busted and often game-winning ability.

best in slot seems here:

 

Companion: 

The Companion ability is really interesting to me as you have to make a build around in the given way if you want to use the creature as your Companion. Thinking of it, wouldn't it be fun to have some of them as your companion :P 

Keep in mind that you don't have to use these cards as your companion, you can just add them to your Deck without fulfilling the companion needs, but having the huge upside of a specific 8th card added to your starting hand seems to be a go-to in most cases right?!?

here are my favorite Companions to build around so far:

wow this card is strong. There is already a lot of Decks build around Gyruda on the ladder and I could imagine we will have one in the top Meta - will you be the one with the best build?!?

I love wild and meme builds such as rainbow builds. we already had a viable build last Meta. Will this card push it to the top? 

Or will new 4C. builds making an appearance?!? Great Card to build around - let's see what it can do...

isn't this such a strong ability by itself?! There is already a Crokeyz build out there which made it to the top of the ladder and is played by a lot of streamers these days. 

I´m sure there will be more builds even just including it without using the companionability.

And here is my favorite Companion to build around:  

I bet you guessed it :P

I love the idea of making an 80 Card Deck which just opens up so many new possibilities and strategies in itself...

My heart as a brewer was making a jump when I first saw this card ;) 

Let´s see who will brake this card the best way ;)

This card is definitely one of my favorite cards to build around in Ikoria.

Ok, guys, this wraps up part 1 of "Cards to build around in Ikoria". Stay tuned for part 2 which will be "my Top 5 Cards to build around in IKORIA". 

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and Thanks for reading.

The Magician