I have a tendency to get tunnel vision. It's one of my greatest weaknesses as a player and as a person.

When I first started thinking about Khans of Tarkir's delve cards, I got too focused on the fact that delve enablers such as Jace, the Living Guildpact aren't all that good while completely missing the fact that delve as a mechanic is totally busted. I was focusing on things that didn't matter while simultaneously ignoring history. Never mind that "free" mechanics and reduced costs for powerful effects have been historically strong. All one really needs to do in order to see how good Khans' lot of delve cards is dust off one of these:

There was a time when people were lining up to take eight damage off of Dark Confidant just to cast a two mana 5/5 flier.

Concentrate, Ancestral Memories and Accessories to Murder are all playable in their own right, and getting a discount on them just has to be good. I would feel more foolish were I playing in New Jersey or Indianapolis without adopting Treasure Cruise, but I still feel foolish having not given them much thought even not having had the opportunity to put those thoughts into practice.

The cat is out of the bag now, and there's no sense in bemoaning not being the first one to the party. All there is left to do now is shotgun a beer and jump right into things.

Legacy: Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time

You've all seen Bob Huang's open winning deck by now. But it's worth another look.

Carsten Kotter called it before the first Legacy tournament where Khans was even played--four Treasure Cruise isn't just a thing. It's the thing.

I haven't played a game of Legacy with Treasure Cruise yet, so I only have theoretical points to make about this deck and the format. I can't say either way how I feel about Monastery Swiftspear, but I will say that there is a gaping hole in this deck where the Wasteland or Price of Progress should be.

The reason that Wasteland was disregarded in this deck is that it was built to just burn. That's all well and good, but if that's the case, why not play what is contextually the most efficient burn spell in Legacy? The closer you stay to Bob's list, the more I recommend Price of Progress.

As for how I want to approach the deck, I'm a Wasteland man and I am likely always to be. Wasteland helps you build towards Treasure Cruise while interacting in a very meaningful way, in addition to, you know, being Wasteland.

Going forward, I think that this deck would benefit from access to True-Name Nemesis. It won't be long before we see Abrupt Decay decks with four Treasure Cruises, and having a more resilient threat will go a long way in actually closing games.

On that note, the inevitable uptick in fair blue decks will likely lead to more True-Name Nemesises in general. Given the nature of how WotC is printing the Commander deck that contains True-Name Nemesis, it's hard to say that there's any money to be made on the card in the near future, but if Treasure Cruise is still legal when Mind Seize goes out of print, you can definitely expect the card to appreciate significantly over time.

Notably, Bob's deck does what Nimble Mongoose decks have been doing for years by getting threshold just by playing Magic. All that's left to do is figure out if your blue deck would rather have Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time.

Fair decks will likely stick to Treasure Cruise, but combo could certainly play both spells. I for one find the idea of Sneak and Show with even greater card selection unsettling.

Vintage: Treasure Cruise

The Monday night following Bob Huang's Legacy win, I showed up to the local Vintage tournament looking over my Izzet Delver deck and trying to make room for Treasure Cruise. Hawthorne thought I was just being a jackass, but I knew that one copy was certainly acceptable and wanted to try and make two work. I cut the second Vendilion Clique from the deck and battled with this:

Unlike in Legacy, you won't have the ability to Brainstorm, Treasure Cruise away in the early turns, but it has some serious upside in Vintage in that it can't be Mental Missteped or Misdirectioned. You can also delve to pay for Sphere effects, and it's unlikely that your opponent will cast, or even be able to cast, Chalice of the Void on 8.

I lost a match to a Terra Nova list and beat up on two blue decks, drawing the Treasure Cruise in two games against an Azorius Stoneforge Mystic deck and in at least one game against Terra Nova. It cost one or two every time that I cast it, and, after playing with it once, I absolutely want that second copy.

It's tough to justify playing 3-4 in Vintage due to both the shortage of Brainstorms and the fact that there is an (un)healthy number of games that end before you can do anything with Treasure Cruise other than pitch it to Force of Will. That said, Merchant Scroll is pretty slow/kind of sucks and I'm on board with cutting it for the second Treasure Cruise, then turning the Fire // Ice into the fourth Lightning Bolt.

While I like Treasure Cruise in this deck specifically, it's harder to justify in black Vintage decks. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor already find you whatever you need, and removing cards from your graveyard weakens Yawgmoth's Will. I might just cut Merchant Scroll for Treasure Cruise in any deck playing Merchant Scroll, but beyond that, I haven't figured out exactly how many copies and in what decks Treasure Cruise is warranted.

Modern: Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time

My first thought on Modern with Khans was to shoehorn Dig Through Time into Scapeshift and Splinter Twin.

Meanwhile, Sam Black arguably led the format en route to its next ban when he unveiled this list to the world:

Again, I haven't played with or against this deck yet, but I can't help but feel that cries for a ban might be premature.

The biggest argument against the deck is the capability to kill on turn two, which violates the turn four intention of the format. It seems to me that there are a lot of hate cards like Eidolon of the Great Revel and Ethersworn Canonist that give this deck nightmares, but that was comparably true when Seething Song was banned. At any rate, I'm not the guy who bans the cards and I don't have the experience to say whether this deck is too good or even good at all. All I can say is that it has already put up very strong results and it's something you should be ready to play with or against at your next Modern tournament.

On the topic of my own brews, after the uninspired idea of playing good draw spells in combo decks, it occurred to me that Thought Scour combines excellently with Treasure Cruise. There are a lot of other spells to put in a deck containing these cards and a lot of strategic directions to go. For my money, if these guys are good enough for Legacy in a deck without Wasteland, they're easily good enough for Modern:

You're also obligated to play Snapcaster Mage, because it's still Modern. I don't know how many lands you need to play, what the exact cantrip suite looks like, or if you can afford to play four Snacpaster Mage and four Young Pyromancer. And which of the two you trim. What I do know is that the biggest thing keeping Delver from being a major contender was losing steam as the game goes long. Stellar card draw changes that. It's also notable that having access to four Ancestral Recalls helps to combat the card disadvantage of Vapor Snag.

It is awkward that Goremand can really punish spells with delve, but the upside is so high that it just seems like it has to be worth it. Relic of Progenitus is also a very popular Modern card, but there's no way that jamming all the Treasure Cruises isn't worth at least trying.

With Khans officially on Magic Online I can assure you that I will be giving this type of deck the old college try.

Standard: Murderous Cut

I haven't made up my mind on Sidisi just yet, but I know that Nemesis of Mortals and Nighthowler are sweet. Glenn Jones has been working on the Golgari self-mill deck and tweeted this list earlier last week:

I played a similar list at a local Standard tournament this week and I liked the concept of the deck, thinking it needs some fine-tuning. I pushed two of the Murderous Cuts to the sideboard.

I was wrong. Murderous Cut and Nemesis of Mortals enable you to do things for less mana than you should be able to. That is the strength of this deck, and I can't imagine playing this deck without four of both going forward. Being able to play a fatty and an unconditional removal spell while your opponent could very well still only be playing one spell a turn is incredibly powerful.

My only losses on the night were to Jeskai Tempo when I was on the draw. I won both games where I was on the play and lost all four when I was on the draw.

From the handful of games I have played, I believe a tuned list of this deck will be a real contender. For more on the deck, check out Glenn's article about it. He goes over everything with a lot of depth and the read is definitely worth it if you're into fat monsters at a discounted rate.

The other major observations I have from playing the deck were that Sylvan Caryatid sucked and that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is awesome. This deck might even want to just play all four Urborgs.

M15 copies of Urborg have more or less plateaued right around $5 and the decline on Planar Chaos copies is slowing fast. If Goblin Rabblemaster's price is any indication of the supply level of M15 rares, I would say that Urborg is a great pickup right now. It's casual appeal is as high as it ever was and it's at least a three-of in what is likely to be a competitive Standard deck.

~

The tl;dr today is that ways to "cheat" on mana are excellent and we all should know this by now. Khans of Tarkir really delivered after what many considered to be a disappointing Theros block. In the near future, I suspect you'll either be playing with or to beat Treasure Cruise.

Every format is being shaken up in relatively substantial ways, and putting work in to fully understand how to win a world where the graveyard is more useful than ever will prove very rewarding.

Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter