A Deck Building Odyssey – Part I
The World Tree from Kaldheim is a card with plenty of character for the set’s Norse mythology theme, and its static ability ought to be pretty useful to fix mana issues in any multi-coloured deck:
As long as you control six or more lands, lands you control have “{tap} Add one mana of any color.”
However, for any even moderately aspirational deck-brewer, its activated ability really stands out –
{W}{W}{U}{U}{B}{B}{R}{R}{G}{G}{tap}
Sacrifice The World Tree: Search your library for any number of God cards, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
That would be a great ability for any Creature subtype, but the Devotion-based Enchantment Creature Gods from Theros Beyond Death were all pretty good, some were great, and all of them were Indestructible.
The new gods from Kaldheim are unlike those, lacking the Indestructible ability, but also not needing Devotion to be Creatures. Most are also pretty good, and some are completely bonkers.
The strategy of dumping a whole bunch of them onto the battlefield at the same time would seem promising, to say the least. We’re talking about 18 Gods from Theros and Kaldheim. A glorious pantheon indeed!
Considering the ability, the cost may seem ridiculous at first glance, but multi-Brawl games will often go long, so 8 Lands of some kind or other would be unremarkable, and the required 10 is within reach.
Plus, World Tree completely fixes your mana, so if you had any 10 other Land on the battlefield, you’d be able to play World Tree and activate the ability, regardless of the other lands’ type.
So the theme seems promising, using the ability seems viable, and since there are only 2 ‘counter ability’ cards in the current (Kaldheim) rotation, (both in Blue), resolving the ability and getting the Gods into play is likely.
It might be foolish to build a themed deck with the World Tree and every God in the format, and it would be literally hubristic too; but it would also be a ridiculous amount of fun – let’s see what we can make of it!
Part II coming soon!