Legacy - Spoiler Highlight: The Dawning Archaic

Greetings, Legacy community! Welcome to another round of Secrets of Strixhaven Spoilers!

This time we have a monster that has a lot of potential in some archetypes, as it comes with two things that already proved to be viable in Legacy: you can put it in play for less resources according to how many instants/sorceries are in your graveyard, and it lets you reuse these same spells for free. This second ability even made Dreadhorde Arcanist be banned.

Let's welcome The Dawning Archaic and try to understand where it could see play in this format.

In a format as powerful as Legacy, you always want to be as efficient as possible. So, expensive creatures usually only see play in three scenarios: if you can cheat them into play somehow (Reanimate, Show and Tell, Natural Order, etc), if you can create a lot of mana to afford them (Cloudpost, Planar Nexus, Gaea's Cradle, etc), or if you can discount their cost (Kappa Cannoneer, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, Triumph of Saint Katherine, etc).

The best example of the third scenario in Legacy is Delve. In this format, filling the graveyard is no issue. So, we can easily take advantage of this ability. Cards like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, for instance, are banned in this format much because of this. Creatures like Tombstalker, Gurmag Angler, Hooting Mandrills, Ethereal Forager, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang saw play in tempo lists precisely because they're quite big but can also become quite cheap. All of them were pushed to the sidelines when Modern Horizons 2 brought us Murktide Regent.

This Dragon saw play in tempo decks and control decks with Up the Beanstalk as well, like Sultai Beans. But, though it may be powerful, exiling cards from the graveyard is often costly when it is destroyed or returned to your hand. You'll need to refill, after all, and this also doesn't work all that well with cards like Dragon's Rage Channeler or Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. This even made some players consider cards like Sailor's Bane as an alternative, but it wasn't powerful enough.

I believe a viable alternative is finally here.

The Dawning Archaic is a giant body that you can put into play for much less, as we mentioned, but it also has a pretty useful ability. It resembles Dreadhorde Arcanist a lot: it creates extra value from the graveyard. Unlike Arcanist, however, Archaic can't enter play on turn 2 and give you enough cards to bury the opponent. Its effect is just a bonus, considering by itself it already puts pressure on the opponent.

Archaic's ability makes it a certain target after a while because all the cards you'll get from it will make the board state quite complicated for the opponents.

One interesting thing to note is that the new card lets you play cards with any CMC, while Arcanist would often only let you play cantrips and Lightning Bolts. So, we can use Archaic to play cards like Stock Up or Lórien Revealed, and that also makes it more than just an option for tempo decks.

Let's consider this card as a whole: it can cost 0 mana, but you might have to play more cantrips, like Consider, Mental Note, or Thought Scour, to do so. Even without them, however, you'll often discount its cost quite fast in the current archetypes. Making it free will be relevant in control decks.

As soon as it enters play, it improves your defenses because it has Reach and is immune to some of the most important removals in the format, like Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt. When you start attacking with it, the opponent will have to face a 7/7 that, in the worst-case scenario, lets you recycle a Brainstorm or Ponder. Quite uncomfortable, don't you think?

This card might prove to be too expensive even if you manage to discount its cost, but it has too much potential for us to underestimate it or not test it out. I believe it will see play.

Let's see in which lists, though.

Izzet Tempo

As we mentioned above, the first deck that could use The Dawning Archaic properly is Izzet Tempo, which is a bit "undefined" right now.

The first card that has been primordial for this archetype is Cori-Steel Cutter. To make it work and get lots of tokens, this list needs to play lots of Baubles (Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble). But playing all of these artifacts doesn't really go well with the other core card in this archetype, Delver of Secrets. So, you'll often find lists that use Cutter but not Delver, and vice versa.

The Dawning Archaic leans more towards Delver than Cutter. It needs more instants and sorceries and less 0-cost artifacts - though playing some will still be interesting because of Dragon's Rage Channeler.

So, an Izzet Tempo list that plays Archaic will give up Cori-Steel Cutter and fill the graveyard faster. It will also play some cards to create more value with it, like Stock Up.

Beanstalk Control

As I mentioned above, The Dawning Archaic has a lot of potential in control decks that would already use Murktide Regent as a finisher because it has 3 advantages: you can put it in play for free, it doesn't exhaust your graveyard, and it creates extra value if left in play. The list below is quite up to date, as it plays Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Quantum Riddler to get more cards and more copies of Lórien Revealed instead of the usual single copy.

Jeskai Wizards

Finally, another strategy that could use the new card is a Jeskai Wizards deck, particularly as a low-cost finisher. In the list below, it'll let you reuse Flame of Anor, which can give you a truckload of cards.

My initial reaction was wow! This type of card stands out immediately because it can be completely fair in formats like Standard, for instance, but can start doing absurd things as more sets come out.

In a format like Legacy, putting it in play for free will not be hard. Secrets of Strixhaven is barely here, but we already have cool things for our format.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!