Card Highlight: Cavern of Souls in Standard, Pioneer and Explorer

Cavern of Souls is a land which, when it enters the battlefield, demands you choose a type of creature, and can be tapped to add one colorless mana or to add a mana of any color; this mana can only be used to cast a creature spell of the type you chose, and the creature can't be countered.

This card was originally released in Avacyn Restored, in 2012, and, ever since, it stayed out of Standard, only reappearing in supplementary sets throughout the years. Cavern returns to Standard in Lost Caverns of Ixalan and becomes legal also in Pioneer and Explorer, with the potential to shake up these formats and slightly help Aggro decks.

Both Standard and Pioneer already have access to lands which can create mana based on a creature type. Unclaimed Territory and Secluded Courtyard are good examples of that. What's different about Cavern of Souls is that creatures of the type chosen which are cast can't be countered, and that can make all the difference in the world if we consider the metagames of these formats.

In Standard, currently, there are two decks which will already benefit from Cavern of Souls: Azorius Soldiers and Mono-White Aggro.

Mono-White Aggro

Mono-White is based primarily on Human creatures and tends to struggle against decks such as Esper and Dimir Midrange.

With the new land, besides cards such as Invasion of Gobakhan, which make the match against Midrange decks better, this deck would have a way to completely disable counters, which would help this archetype immensely.

Azorius Soldiers

In Azorius Soldiers, I believe this card would go well in Secluded Courtyard's place. With access to Blue, Soldiers already has a balanced match against the format's Midrange and Control decks - and Cavern could enhance these matches even further.

In Pioneer and Explorer, we have an even higher number of decks focused on specific creature types, and the format is also home to a higher number of decks which use counters, with Azorius Control being the most dominant of them. It is here we'll probably see more impact with the arrival of Cavern of Souls.

Mono-White Humans

Pioneer Humans, even though it is quite similar to its Standard counterpart, is faster and more synergistic. Cavern of Souls will fit this deck nicely, really making games against UW and Dimir Control better, besides helping you against Spirits.

Another benefit created by this card for the Human archetype is that it will make two or more color versions more consistent. Mono-White is the most successful version currently, but nothing is stopping a new Humans deck from coming along and stealing the spotlight as the main version.

Azorius Spirits

Spirits is one of the most popular decks in Pioneer currently, and can also benefit from Cavern of Souls. This card can even be a powerful weapon in mirror matches, even more against Mono-Blue Spirits.

The Azorius version counts on Spell Queller, which should become even more relevant in a metagame with Cavern due to its ability of exiling spells.

Selesnya Angels

This deck really disappeared from the metagame, but should reappear with the release of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Just like Humans and Spirits, Angels will also use Cavern of Souls well, playing with one or two copies of this card.

Now that we listed the most obvious choices to use Cavern of Souls in Standard and Pioneer/Explorer, let's discuss a few not-as-obvious choices and highlight decks which can see the light of day in these formats.

Poison Standard

Poison is a deck that is focused around Toxic, which is basically a worse Infect. Phyrexians can reappear in Standard with the help of this new land.

Dimir Faeries Standard

Faeries premiered as a very popular creature type in Standard, but the deck still hasn't found its footing in the format and performed badly at Worlds. Maybe this deck still needs to find the right build, and Cavern of Souls might change very little, but there's also the possibility that this new land is the card that this deck needs.

Elementals Pioneer/Explorer

Elemental decks are somewhat quite popular in Explorer, but the same can't be said for Pioneer. With Cavern of Souls, this deck can find a new space in the format with a new build and use the new interactions which have already proven to be interesting in other four-color decks, such as Up the Beanstalk and Leyline Binding.

Izzet Dragons Pioneer

This is another fantastic deck, but which didn't stick in the format. Izzet Dragons uses powerful creatures, such as Goldspan Dragon and Iymrith, Desert Doom, and the idea is to use cards such as Dragon's Fire and Silumgar's Scorn, which have great synergy in this deck, to control the game and then finish with the Dragons.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan isn't even here, and has already shown its potential for Standard, Pioneer and Explorer. Cavern of Souls is an almost must-have staple in decks such as Humans and Spirits and opens up interesting possibilities for both formats.

One more article finished, I hope you enjoyed reading it. Leave your questions or suggestions for future articles in the comment section, as I'll try to answer all. See you next time!