Spoiler Highlight: Ketramose, the New Dawn on Competitive Formats!

Exile is one of the least explored themes in Magic: The Gathering to date. Aside from a few Eldrazi that bring things back from exile and a few cards that can be cast from there, or a few that specifically care about mechanics like Foretell, there are very few cards or abilities that actually care about the number of cards in exile or interacts with them.

There may be a good reason for this: there is only one category of cards that take things out of exile, so if an ability like Thershold matters in that zone, just as it is difficult to put cards there without dedicated pieces, it is equally difficult to get them out of there - a Nimble Mongoose that cares about exile will be a 3/3 forever from the moment there are seven or more cards in that zone.

Messing with Exile presents risks, and not just any mortal deserves the privilege of having a Threshold for it, or any other mechanic that interacts with it. This is a domain beyond mortal comprehension, belonging to the realm of the gods.

Ketramose, the New Dawn is part of the cycle of new gods from Amonkhet introduced in the upcoming Magic expansion, Aetherdrift. Although we are only three days into the official preview weeks of the set, it has already made its mark as one of the most powerful cards expected to be released, with enough potential to reach all competitive formats by not only interacting with a “forbidden” play zone for a low cost, but also offering benefits for it.

Ketramose can be compared to a dozen things, but there are no cards specifically like it. For example, we can compare it to the old gods of Amonkhet like Hazoret the Fervent or even the new ones like Hazoret, Godseeker or Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied (which is also another strong card) - in this case, we will notice that the deity, unlike the others, does not feed its own mechanics, a smart decision by Wizards to not turn it into a Phyrexian Arena with benefits and indestructible.

To take advantage of its abilities, we need two things: cards that can be exiled and cards that exile. The first will never be a problem because there will always be permanents on the battlefield and cards in graveyards to exile, so our challenge is what to use to exile things.

It's worth noting that Ketramose, the New Dawn triggers for each separate instance of exile. Delve, for example, exiles X cards at once to pay its cost - in this case, Ketramose will trigger only once. On the other hand, cards like Ghost Vacuum or Keen-Eyed Curator, which exile cards one at a time, can be used to draw X cards, with X being the number of times you can exile something from a graveyard.

This interaction also works for cards like Solitude and Ephemerate if done on their controller's turn, or for multiple Eldrazi Displacer activations in one turn. And if you have some way to make one or more creatures go back and forth from exile repeatedly—for example, with Food Chain and Eternal Scourge—you can draw an absurd amount of cards with Ketramose.

Finally, another important interaction involves the number of cards in exile. Mechanics like Plot, Foretell, Adventure, and Suspend (but not Impending) count toward the number of cards in exile and the threshold needed to turn Ketramose into a creature, where a 4/4 with Menace, Lifelink, and difficult to respond does a good job for three mana.

In other words, the new god is a powerhouse waiting to be explored, with an ability and text that make him capable of finding homes in nearly every format he'll ever be legal in.

Standard has a dozen cards that interact with Ketramose and a few archetypes that might be interested in it. For starters, it has a mana value of three and cares about cards being exiled, putting it as the best buddy for Abhorrent Oculus variants that want a splash for or .

With the costs to cast Oculus and the possibility of using Founding the Third Path, it's not hard to have seven or more cards in exile to turn Ketramose into a creature, and some lists already include Soul Partition as a mix of removal and means to protect your creatures.

Additionally, Ketramose offers an alternative win condition for Oculus decks against graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, as we can keep the Mill plan but replace cards that rely on the graveyard with the new god, forcing the insertion of more cards like Anoint with Affliction or Sunfall to resolve a board with it.

The new card has good interactions with Keen-Eyed Curator and Scavenging Ooze, and turns Ghost Vacuum into a source of card advantage for one mana. I believe that a deck trying to rely too much on these micro-interactions will not be good enough for the format because archetypes like Dimir Midrange or Bounce easily take advantage of the dependence on specific cards to win games.

On the other hand, cards that already naturally fit into decks, such as Restless Cottage or Anoint with Affliction give it more potential if used on its controller's turn, and Standard's mana base can easily support three-color archetypes that take advantage of these abilities.

Pioneer has a Metagame that, in part, would justify using a copy of Ghost Vacuum in the maindeck and this would greatly improve Ketramose, but the new god shares a role in Pioneer with Oculus decks in Standard: being the backup for graveyard hate in Greasefang, Okiba Boss lists.

Like Oculus, Greasefang puts plenty of cards in the graveyard rapidly, and the main hate cards against it include Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void. Against both, Ketramose becomes a difficult to remove for many decks and generates an absurd clock while being a creature - a type that matters for cards like Grisly Salvage in the Abzan version, or Overlord of the Balemurk for the other variants.

Another key factor for it in Pioneer is the fact that it is a target for Collected Company, whose main archetype includes cards like Skyclave Apparition and Werefox Bodyguard to exile creatures from the battlefield.

It's also worth mentioning that Ketramose interacts well with some of the format's main removals, such as the aforementioned Anoint with Affliction and Vanishing Verse. Other cards with good interactions with the new god include Graveyard Trespasser as a constant graveyard hate that generates card advantage with it in play, and Dreadhorde Arcanist which has similar interactions, but whose role in the format today is much less focused on attrition games.

We also can't forget about the Goodstuff decks with Yorion, Sky Nomad that have, in some lists, blink effects for creatures, or even the Orzhov Demons lists with Yorion that reuse several ETBs and usually run Graveyard Trespasser as a complementary threat.

Ketramose, the New Dawn has a challenge to make it to Modern: to be better than the wide diversity of options available in the format, even better than the cards from Modern Horizons. It's possible, but there's also the possibility of it being win more for the decks that would like it.

First, we have to consider the most obvious archetypes: Orzhov Vial and Esper Goryo.

Goryo’s Vengeance went from an all-in combo to a Midrange with a combo win line using its key card alongside Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Griselbrand. Several of the cards in its list interact with Ketramose: Psychic Frog can enable it as early as the turn it comes into play, Solitude played on its controller's turn triggers its ability and, if responded to with Ephemerate, guarantees three draws in one turn, with a fourth draw guaranteed the following turn, and Emperor of Bones offers an extra draw at the start of each combat.

All of this is done while Goryo's game plan is being executed, so there's no compromise in adding the new card to the list, but it's worth questioning whether it's really worth the slots. On its own, Ketramose doesn't do anything, and exiling seven cards can be a chore early in the game. The fact that it dodges several types of removal puts it in a good spot in Modern today, and as in other cases, the fact that it's an "answer to the answer" makes it a powerful addition to Esper Goryo.

The other archetype that Ketramose fits into is the Orzhov Vial that gained ground after the bans and put Overlord of the Balemurk and its interaction with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd on the radar. These archetypes usually use a toolbox with Recruiter of the Guard and the new deity doesn't fit this mold, which is its greatest obstacle to entering the list.

On the other hand, Overlord is also not found by Recruiter and found slots as a staple. Perhaps, adding Ketramose as a two-of or, as suggested by a Reddit user, removing Recruiter and focusing the list on extracting value from the new card while having the same micro-interactions that put the deck on the radar could make Orzhov Vial gain more space in the Metagame.

It is worth mentioning that these lists include the complete package: Ephemerate, Phelia, Solitude, Skyclave Apparition, Emperor of Bones, Boggart Trawler and even Tidehollow Sculler - and all of these, without exception, interact perfectly with Ketramose.

It's also possible to include Ketramose in Mardu Energy lists since Phelia interacts with cards like Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and Seasoned Pyromancer while Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury fuels the conditions to enable the new god in combat, not to mention Static Prison and Thraben Charm.

Dimir Tempo lists could include Ketramose as a splash for since they include a full suite of cards that interact with it, such as Abhorrent Oculus, Unearth, and Psychic Frog - but that splash would come with deckbuilding concessions that may not be worth it and/or make it worse than Goryo's Vengeance in that category.

Between Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares, and a dozen cards that exile things, plus the excessive graveyard hate required in the format to hold Reanimator, it's clear that Ketramose, the New Dawn could have a place in Legacy, but where?

One could argue that it deserves a slot in Orzhov Vial lists that have also grown in Legacy in recent weeks for the same reasons it could be included in Modern, but Recruiter of the Guard plays a key role in Legacy to find answers like Skyclave Apparition in an inherently faster Metagame, or to find Stoneforge Mystic, which will find Equipment or Kaldra Compleat to close out the game.

Not to mention the risks of paying three mana for a card that does nothing on its own in the early turns - perhaps, if the Metagame was still too focused on Reanimator, Ketramose could take advantage of it to be played as a threat faster.

There is also a “loop” between Ketramose and the Food Chain combos in Legacy, since the enchantment exiles creatures for mana and creates infinite mana with Eternal Scourge, but there is a life cost in its trigger so, unless a fourth piece is added, we cannot make an infinite draw for Thassa’s Oracle with it.

Ketramose, the New Dawn is certainly one of the most powerful cards that will come out in Aetherdrift. The fact that it doesn't feed its own mechanics was certainly done to balance the fact that there are many ways to interact with it in Magic, especially in the competitive scene, where exiling things from the battlefield and the graveyard are very common actions.

It remains to be seen where it fits in, whether the hype surrounding it will actually generate powerful new archetypes, or whether it will just be another in a long list of cards in each expansion whose expectations were very high, but which in the end prove to be of little use to the decks in which it can fit.

Thanks for reading!