Through the Omenpaths Set Review – Standard and Alchemy

Hi all. Through the Omenpaths (the digital version of Marvel’s Spider-Man) has been fully spoiled and is releasing on MTG Arena on September 23rd. This is actually a smaller set than usual, reminiscent of the small sets of old, which makes it a lot easier to digest and evaluate the best cards from the set.

Today, I’ve selected 30 cards from the set that intrigue me for play in Standard and/or Alchemy, to discuss and breakdown what the card is doing, and what type of deck I think it can find a home in.

So let’s dive in and start talking about Through the Omenpaths!

Ademi of the Silkchutes

Ademi of the Silkchutes is a nice card for White aggro decks. A 3/2 for two with flash lets you hold up interaction or just bluff something, and it gaining flying for 1 is quite powerful, as a three power flying attacker is going to hit hard.

The other ability to give your creatures hexproof and indestructible is really nice. With Sunfall out of Standard, and other forms of exile sweepers not seeing a ton of play, Ademi can absolutely come in out of nowhere to save your board, or even just to protect one important creature from a removal spell.

I’m excited to try out Ademi in White aggro decks and surprise opponents with it.

A Most Helpful Weaver

A Most Helpful Weaver is a saga that can pack quite a punch. When it enters you get a 2/1 token with reach, then you get to pump something up, and then give something double strike.

If you just use this on your 2/1 token, it becomes a 3/2, and then a 3/2 with double strike for a turn, giving you a total of 9 damage for just two mana. You can also find other creatures to put that counter on or give double strike to, making this a nice flexible saga.

I think I would want to have some synergies, either with tokens, or counters, before I put this card into a deck, but there are a lot of options I think this card can really pack a punch.

Surris, Spidersilk Innovator

Surris, Spidersilk Innovator / Surris, Silk-Tech Vanguard is a solid creature in a lot of decks on the front side, and a cool build around and enabler on the back side. This cycle of flip legends can be cast on either side, so if you are built around the Silk-Tech Vanguard, you don’t have to run out the Spidersilk Innovator first.

While a 0/1 is pretty unexciting, we have seen time and time again that getting two bodies for two mana is very powerful, such as Resolute Reinforcements. If you are playing this for the front side, you can still flip it later on to upgrade your 0/1 to a 4/4 with vigilance.

I’m less high on the backside for Standard or Alchemy, but you can definately build around this as a way to get legendary creatures into play for cheap. Enweb asks you to return a tapped creature to your hand alongside paying the enweb cost, and there are lots of good ways to tap creatures right now, like station on spacecrafts and planets.

I think I’m most excited to play this in a go wide deck, as two bodies for the price of one.

Yera and Oski, Weaver and Guide

Yera and Oski, Weaver and Guide is a powerful way to slow down certain opponents. Obviously this card is going to feel best when you are able to use Enweb to get it into play for one mana, look at your opponents hand, and then slow down their removal spells.

Even as a three mana play, Yera and Oski is pretty solid, but I see this having a home in White aggro decks, where this is coming down for one mana on turn two or three, making the opponents instants or sorceries cost more, and then redepolying whatever you bounced.

Like I said before, there are a lot of good ways to tap your creatures without getting them into combat, so in a white aggro deck with Lumen-Class Frigate you shouldn’t have any problems getting this down for one mana.

I’m excited to try to build some sort of White aggro or Death and Taxes type deck with Yera and Oski.

Detect Intrusion

Detect Intrusion is a nice little counterspell. At two mana this is worse than Negate because it doesn’t hit enchantments, artifacts, etc. but in a tempo deck that has a lot of creatures, this can easily Enweb to counter a removal spell, or sweeper, or card draw spell for just one mana, and it hitting triggered abilities is nice too.

I think this is more of a sideboard card, but if you are playing Dimir Midrange in Standard, or some sort of Nurturing Pixie deck, this seems like a great sideboard option for good tempo gaming.

Goben, Gene-Splice Savant

Goben, Gene-Splice Savant / Fleem, Goben’s Creation is nice starting as Goben and flipping into Fleem, or just running it out as Fleem. A 1/1 unblockable for two is not very powerful, even if it does connive when it hits a player. However, if you are discarding nonland cards Goben will grow, so when you do flip it into Fleem it has extra counters on it.

The real juice here is Fleem, which discounts spells cast from your graveyard, which works well with mechanics like flashback, but also with the Mayhem that Fleem gives to all of your nonland cards.

Mayhem lets you cast cards from your graveyard if they were discarded this turn. So you need ways to discard cards, like looting, or some other activated or triggered abilities, but there are a lot of easy ways to discard cards.

Once you are discarding cards and casting them for 2 less, you can easily be getting powerful effects from your discards and getting those spells back for cheap, giving you a ton of value.

There isn’t a dedicated Grixis deck in Standard or Alchemy, but I’m willing to try to put something together to make Fleem work.

Outsmart the Amateur

Outsmart the Amateur is a sweet control card. Drawing three cards for five mana at instant speed is quite powerful, and Jace's Ingenuity saw plenty of play back in the day, this also gives you the option to counter a spell and still get a card, which is slightly more expensive Crpytic Command.

Control is already seeing some play in Standard, and I think this card can easily slot in at the top of the curve as a way to refill the hand or keep the opponent from landing their bombs.

Spectral Restitching

Spectral Restitching is pretty flexible. You can use it for two mana to save a creature from a removal spell, use it for three or four to blink a couple of creatures to get there enters effects again or save them from a sweeper, or it can blink out opponent’s creatures to clear the way for a big attack or to act as a Fog effect for a turn.

I’m not sure where this card fits in, but flexible cards like this that scale up as the game goes on always intrigue me, and I’m sure there is some very silly things you can do with this.

The House Grows Hungry

The House Grows Hungry is a nice saga for the right deck. Three mana sorcery speed removal is not very powerful, but if you are able to make use of the second chapter to discard a card for effects like Mayhem, then you are getting some good value.

Taking out a creature, taking a card or three life, and exiling the opponent’s graveyard are all fine, but I really want some synergy with chapter two to put this card in my deck.

However, I do think that Mayhem is going to be a very powerful mechanic, and there are lots of other reasons is discard cards for various synergies, such as setting up a turn four Zombify, so I think this will be a nice tool in the toolbox for a variety of decks.

Luis, Pompous Pillager

Luis, Pompous Pillager is a nice midgame threat or endgame finisher. In the midgame this come out at five mana to give you a 5/4 with lifelink that drains for three. Since Luis has lifelink, when he enters and deals damage to an opponent you will gain that much life.

I think that Luis is great at almost any point on the curve. He can come down early to stabilize the board against aggro or he can be a big finisher in a ramp deck and drain the opponent for 6 or more, or even as a finisher in an aggro deck getting those last 3 or 4 points of damage, and I look forward to trying him out in various decks.

The Terminus of Return

The Terminus of Return is so sweet for Mono-Black decks. Giving ramp to Mono-Black midrange decks helps them get to their mid and late game against aggro decks, helping them clean up the board, get to their late game plays, or even ramp out a big Luis.

The fact that it is legendary does put a damper on the playability of this card, since you can’t stack multiple of them in play, but jumping from two to four is still worth playing a couple of these.

Later in the game you can harness the artifact by exiling a creature, and then you start to get creatures back at the beginning of your upkeep. This is great because your ramp card is also your finisher, so its good early and good later.

Bayo, Irritable Instructor

Bayo, Irritable Instructor is a fun enabler and payoff for spell slinging red decks or big mana decks.

Getting a red mana whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell makes it easy to keep the chain going. It’s almost like making your spells cost one mana less, and I expect this ability to be why Bayo sees play in more powerful formats.

However in Standard and Alchemy where it is harder to chain a bunch of spells together, you are going to be looking to bank up red mana each turn, and then spend that mana on big spells on later turns or just to do a bunch of damage to the opponent’s face when Bayo leaves the battlefield.

It is kind of gross how Bayo works super well with Vivi Ornitier, letting you make a bunch of red mana with Vivi and then keep it around for a rainy day.

There are just so many possible decks and formats for Bayo to see play in, that I expect to get a lot of mileage out of crafting the card.

Kraza, the Swarm as One

Kraza, the Swarm as One has a lot of text. While preventing damage doesn’t happen that often, preventing your spells from being countered can be very impactful especially early in the game.

Kraza can come down as a 2/1 with haste, or a 3/2, and which you choose will depend on the matchup and how your hand looks. The real power though is giving your other spider riot as well.

There are so many spiders in this set that you can easily build some sort of spider typal deck and probably be pretty competitive. Riot giving haste can lead to some nasty turns when the opponent’s shields are down, and even on boards where haste isn’t good you can grow all of your creatures.

I wouldn’t play Kraza outside of a dedicated spider deck, but I guess if you are some sort of red combo deck and wanted protection for your spells you could bring Kraza in from the sideboard to make your spells uncounterable.

Nia, Skysail Storyteller

Nia, Skysail Storyteller / Nia, Fabled Skyclimber is great on both sides. I really like that all of these flip cards are good starting on their front side and flipping to their back side, or just good on either side.

The front side gives you a card and a 2/1, which is totally fine for two mana. Nia does have to live for you to be able to cast that card, but on later turns you can play her and play the card right away.

The Fabled Skyclimber is a sweet finisher for a Jeskai aggro deck. Five mana gives you a 4/4 with flying and haste, and it can continue to grow if you have the right synergies. If the board stalls and you can’t get in good attacks with her anymore, you can turn those counters into more cards, which turn into more counters, etc.

I think the biggest problem with this card is there isn’t a home for it right now. Jeskai isn’t a popular color combination in Standard or Alchemy, but I like the front side of Nia even just in a mono-red deck as card advantage.

Quint’s Insight

Quint’s Insight is another one of those cards that is both an enabler and a payoff, and I really like what it is doing.

First of all, you get to filter through your hand every turn at you main phase, so you get to draw your card for turn, and if it’s an extra land or something you don’t need you can toss it for another look.

On the other hand if you are empty handed and you draw exactly what you need, you will have to discard it for a fresh card, so it is worth it to keep an extra card in hand when playing Quint’s Insight.

Now the first part of this card doesn’t inheritally trigger the second part of the card, unless you are pairing this with a deck full of mayhem cards, cards with flashback, or cards like Nia that let you play cards from exile.

So I really like this card for mayhem decks as a way to get mayhem cards into the graveyard and a way to whittle the opponent down as you just play your cards.

Skittering Kitten

Skittering Kitten might seem like a weird shoutout, but this is another Insolent Neonate effect, giving you a way to get cards out of your hand for cheap, for the purpose of reanimation, mayhem, etc.

This may be better in older formats, but I just like these cheap enablers that help you get cards out of your hand when you want them in the graveyard. It can also get a point or two in early, and then block and sacrifice.

Cren, Undercity Dreamer

Cren, Undercity Dreamer / Cren of the Spider Brood is a sweet card for Green aggro decks. The front side is great on turn two when you have a one drop, as this will pump up itself to a 2/3 and toss a counter on your one drop. It is also good later in the game to put some love around and give you bigger attackers.

That is what you want from your threats, is when they are good on curve but also good later in the game, and Cren delivers that.

If you are in Naya, you also have a sweet late game beater. With some extra mana he can protect himself, and if you are able to put counters on your creatures, he is going to double them up to make them even scarier threats.

I mostly want this card for the front side, but I am open to trying to make Naya work, especially since we have two shocklands for it.

The Scouring Stormsoul

The Scouring Stormsoul is a very powerful finisher for a ramp deck or a self mill deck. On curve this is a 3 mana 3/3 that grows throughout the game, and the fact that it can’t be blocked by small creatures makes it easier to end the game with it.

In a self-mill deck, you can easily get this and a land into the graveyard to return to play making this a very tough card to every permanently deal with.

I’ve had a lot of fun with Sultai graveyard decks in both Standard and Alchemy, and this seems like the perfect card to just play as a one-of to eventually find with your copies of Esper Origins to put into the graveyard.

You could also just jam this in Mono-Green aggro as an on curve threat that grows later into the game.

Borys, the Spider Rider

Borys, the Spider Rider is only okay if you are casting him straight up. A 4/3 trample for three mana just isn’t that exciting anymore. However, if you are using his Enweb ability, well then we are talking.

There are several nice scenarios with Borys. First, you play turn one Llanowar Elves, turn two you tap the elf, enweb Borys into play as a 5/4, and then replay the elf. Without a hard removal spell your opponent is going to be under the gun pretty quickly.

Second, you could wait until turn four, attack with a two drop or use a two drop to station something, enweb Borys into play as a 6/5, and then use your remaining two lands to replay your two drop.

There are lots of cools tricks and synergies that come with enweb, and Borys is a really powerful beatdown card that is going to help you dominate the board and enable all of those synergies.

Knife Trick

Knife Trick isn’t all that exciting in most decks, as the cost is not one most decks are willing to pay. However, if you are a dedicated mayhem deck or are looking to discard Vivi Ornitier, or some other reanimation target, suddenly Knife Trick is a really solid removal spell for those decks.

This is my favorite type of removal spell, one that isn’t good in most decks but in the right decks it shines. This takes out a lot of key threats in both Standard and Alchemy, and will be a nice inclusion for the mayhem deck.

Makdee and Itla, Skysnarers

We’ve seen Authority of the Consulsbecome a main deckable card in both Standard and Alchemy, and Makdee and Itla, Skysnarers gives you a way to get that effect into your deck while also playing a decent attacker.

A 2/2 flying for two is fine, it will put on some pressure, but we are mostly here for the effect tapping all of your opponent’s creatures and artifacts.

I like this for white aggro decks trying to break the aggro mirror, but I also like this for blue decks that didn’t have access to Authority of the Consuls as a way to get that type of effect in a Sultai deck, or Dimir deck, or Izzet deck, etc.

This being legendary is a bit sad, it means we can’t overload on this card, but this is still a solid main deck option for some decks and sideboard option for others.

Rhino’s Rampage

Rhino’s Rampage is very powerful but it is kind of ironic that the best deck against Vivi Cauldron, Mono-Red aggro, just got another toy against the deck. The dream with this card is to fight a creature that the Vivi player has in play, deal excess damage, and take out their Agatha's Soul Cauldron along the way.

I think that Rhino’s Ramage is also pretty nice for Mono-Green aggro decks, and maybe this can help them rise up to be another aggro option against Vivi in Standard.

Ruzic, Booed but Victorious

Ruzic, Booed but Victorious is, first of all, hilarious, and second of all, a great enabler for mayhem decks.

Ruzic is above the curve as a 5/4 for three mana, but it has the downside of making you discard each turn. That is unless you want to discard because you have mayhem cards in your deck or other graveyard synergies.

Ruzic is another one of those cards that is both an enabler, letting you discard your mayhem cards, and a payoff, as a mayhem card himself. The fact that he makes treasures each turn is extra gravy, and since the discard is at your upkeep, once you get empty handed you won’t be discarding your one card per turn.

Ruzic seems really powerful as long as you have the synergies to turn this downside into an upside, which really isn’t that difficult.

Giantcraft Helm

Giantcraft Helm may seem tough to make work, but I think it can work well with big warp creatures that you find ways to give haste to.

When Edge of Eternities came out, I brewed an Izzet deck that was giving big warp creatures haste through a variety of means, and Giantcraft Helm is great in that type of deck because it comes down one turn one, when you don’t have anything else to do, and then can easily add 4, 8, or 12 damage over several turns later in the game.

This works naturally well with Nova Hellkite, which can come down on turn three for its warp cost, pick up the Giantcraft Helm and swing in for 8, and then come down again on turn five and swing in for another 8.

You have to build very specifically for this card to work, but I wouldn’t sleep on it just because of that equip 5 cost.

Perfected Pastry

Perfected Pastry is such a nice card for artifact decks that have access to white mana. It comes down for cheap, it can pump a creature and draw a card for just one mana, and if you don’t have white mana it can still sacrifice for two to draw a card.

These type of cheap artifacts that sacrifice for cheap always manage to find some type of home, and there are a variety of artifact decks in both Standard and Alchemy that I want to try this in.

Phenomena Recorder

Phenomena Recorder can be tough to make work, but I think you can do some powerful things with this card. The main reason I’m interested in this is because it comes down for so cheap, and there are so many powerful triggers that are worth copying.

In Alchemy, I see this in a dedicated artifact deck and doubling up your Drix Interlacer, or in Standard it can double up a trigger from Simulacrum Synthesizer to flood the board or from Repurposing Bay to get two powerful artifacts.

There are a ton more possibilities with this card, like copying your Fabled Passage trigger for an extra land, but I do think that the best place for this is an artifact deck where it has more synergies than just copying a few triggers.

Stitcher’s Wings

Stitcher’s Wings seems like a sweet payoff for a mayhem deck. You can imagine a turn four where you mayhem a creature into play, or play a two drop, and then mayhem this into play to not only give that creature haste but also flying, almost guaranteeing that it will be connecting.

I wouldn’t play a ton of copies of this card, but in a dedicated mayhem deck, this is a nice way to close out games, as the combo of flying and haste is just so potent. Once this is in play, you only have to pay 2 to equip it, meaning that any creature off the top of your deck is suddenly a threat.

I wouldn’t play this card if I didn’t have ways to discard it, but as long as you have a few of those this card can slot into a variety of aggro decks.

Exclusive Nightclub

Exclusive Nightclub is another sweet mayhem card. I do think they printed enough mayhem in this small set to make it work, and this land is another piece of that puzzle.

Letting you discard a land from you hand and still make your land drop is going to be a big help, since usually you want to discard extra lands to find action. Exclusive Nightclub ensures that you keep hitting your land drops so that you can do even more on future turns.

It is also fine as a turn one tapped land to start your mana base. Overall, this card is going to be a nice inclusion for mayhem decks. I wouldn’t play it unless you had a decent amount of discard in your deck.

Multiversal Passage

Multiversal Passage is very powerful. It provides great fixing for two color, three color, and more decks, it can be untapped when you need it to be, and it is a basic land type to turn on your verge lands or check lands in Alchemy.

This card is going to see play from the moment it is available to the moment it rotates. While some two color aggro decks will place this alongside Starting Town, if you are a slower deck that was just playing Starting Town for mana fixing, I would say ditch it for Multiversal Passage.

I assume that we aren’t going to get the other five shocklands until Lorwyn Eclipsed in January, but Multiversal Passage is a powerful land that really helps out two and three color decks.

Urban Retreat

Urban Retreat is a really fun card that can lead to some explosive starts. The dream with this card is to play a turn one Llanowar Elves, and then on turn two tap the elf for mana to put this into play, and then use your other land to replay the elf. This gives you five mana on turn three with just lands and your elf.

Other than that scenario, this is a nice way to bounce creatures back to your hand if you want to reuse their enters effect, so maybe we could try this in Nurturing Pixie decks as well.

This is just a cool effect to have on a land, and there are a lot of interesting possibilities. If you are in two of these colors and have creatures, you should at least consider this land while deck building.

Wrapping Up

Through the Omenpaths has a lot of sweet cards, and I can’t wait to get brewing some fun new decks with them. While the set is small, there are a couple of fun mechanics with Enweb and Mayhem.

The set doesn’t come out for two weeks, so I’ll be back then to go over everything that I have brewed up for it!

So whether you are playing Spider-Man in paper, or Through the Omenpaths online, I hope you have fun brewing, looking at the cards, and getting excited for the new set!