Spoiler Highlight: Zhao, the Moon Slayer in Competitive Formats

A week before the preview season for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Magic: The Gathering's head designer, Mark Rosewater, offered small hints of what players could find in the set.

Among them, one caught the attention of the eternal formats community: a red card with the Blood Moon effect. Players speculated on various possibilities, but it is now revealed and, while it doesn't resemble the enchantment as much as a Magus of the Moon would, it has the potential to be just as effective in the right decks.

Zhao, the Moon Slayer does, in fact, have the ability of Blood Moon, but requires seven mana to reach that point. As a base, however, it's a 2/2 with Menace for two mana that taps non-basic lands for one turn, resembling cards like Thalia, Heretic Cathar, except that its effect is symmetrical and, consequently, also affects its controller.

The new creature, therefore, fits into red strategies that use a low mana curve and/or few non-basic lands — and it's not like Red isn't already one of the hottest colors in formats like Standard and Pioneer, or as if eternal formats like Legacy and Timeless don't have archetypes that can't benefit from delaying the opponent's Fetch Land for a turn, or "tapping" lands like Ancient Tomb.

Efficient body, relevant abilities in any competitive Metagame, and a creature type that matters in some circumstances — Zhao has everything to be one of the most powerful cards from Avatar for competitive Magic.

Standard

It's not like Mono Red isn't one of the best decks in the format, right?

The current version of Red Aggro in Standard uses, on average, only six non-basic lands, and this number could be further reduced if Zhao, the Moon Slayer proves sufficiently effective—and speaking of which, it's likely that, after the Standard bannings on November 10th, decklists will no longer need to play two-drops like Razorkin Needlehead or Scalding Viper and can look for more suitable options.

Zhao offers it: even if only for one turn, the possibility of delaying the opponent's two-drop or third turn while having a creature with Menace already goes a long way in ensuring it connects for at least two combat phases, and whatever comes in the following turns is a bonus.

Furthermore, the new card also has the advantage of contributing to the long-term growth of the Standard mana base, which tends to encourage more greedy archetypes with multiple colors and a broader search for dual lands in two-color lists to achieve more consistency.

There is already a discussion about whether Zhao will be a Game Changer in Commander, and while we cannot say what its fate will be in the multiplayer environment, it will definitely change games in Standard.

Pioneer

Although Mono Red Aggro is currently the most famous deck in Pioneer, Zhao has greater difficulty fitting into the archetype's current shell. The absence of Prowess or interaction with spells, coupled with the fact that the archetype runs, on average, between eight and ten non-basic lands, may cause it to hinder the deck more than help it.

Another problem is that it already competes for maindeck slots with potentially better cards: the mice package is complete in the format and with Monstrous Rage — it's possible, but unlikely, that this will change with the November 10th Banlist — while the flexible slots are highly contested.

It also suffers from the fact that Pioneer tends to respect non-basic land hate due to the prevalence of Sunspine Lynx in the Mono Red maindeck, placing it, in this archetype, in a position where it seems more like a sideboard card in games where we need to delay the opponent who runs too many nonbasics by one or two turns.

However, we cannot ignore that Zhao is a Legendary Human, which may give it space in decks like Boros Legends with Mox Amber, Zack Fair, and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to defeat the opponent through resource denial and a fast clock, or even in a Human-focused list — but this, probably, still requires a card similar to Aether Vial to not suffer so much from non-basic land disruption while trying to play cards like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar.

Modern

Of all formats, Zhao seems the least useful in Modern due to the Metagame: it is, by nature, a Tempo card: you want to deny your opponent's resources while advancing your own with it, and among the pre-existing options today, the one that best suits it for this purpose is Boros Energy.

The problem, however, is that this is a very aggressive archetype with its Fetch Lands and utility lands while running Blood Moon to disrupt greedy decks without losing access to since it can search for Plains; in this strategy, having Zhao as a two-drop is counterproductive to its game plan.

Cards like Voice of Victory should still be the complementary two-drop of choice in Energy, with Zhao perhaps finding Sideboard slots to delay archetypes who relies on untapped non-basic lands at the right time.

Legacy

While there is room to test the new card in Stompy decks and punish opponents' Fetch Lands and Wasteland, archetypes like Moon Stompy will most likely opt for Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, given the ease of casting them on the first or second turn with a combination of Ancient Tomb / City of Traitors and Chrome Mox.

Where Zhao can shine in Legacy is, ironically, in the archetypes where he might not have a place in Modern due to the reliance on Fetch Lands: while the same is true for Boros Energy in Legacy, the mana efficiency in Legacy is much more relevant to the point where playing a tapped Fetch Land can stall your opponent for the rest of the game.

The same can be said of decks with Imperial Recruiter / Recruiter of the Guard and Aether Vial, where Zhao complements the broad toolbox of these strategies in lists with a splash for , while these decks also usually have the habit of running cards like Rishadan Port to deny the opponent's mana.

Timeless

Zhao, the Moon Slayer faces the same challenges in Red Stompy in Timeless as it does in Legacy, but with the advantage that, currently, some of the most common utility lands of the archetype do not yet exist in the format: City of Traitors and Urza’s Saga — however, the possibility of locking down your Strip Mine and Ancient Tomb in the process should not be ignored.

It's an easier card to cast on the first turn coming from a Chrome Mox, and we can use a Strip Mine to pay the colorless cost, forcing the opponent to play a tapped land that we can use Mine to destroy on the following turn.

The problem is that there are archetypes that don't care if lands enter tapped if Zhao isn't cast on the first or second turn. A Deathrite Shaman or Chrome Mox are already enough to negate the card's resource denial.

That's all for today!

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Thank you for reading!