Will Solphim, Mayhem Dominus Be The New Torbran, Thane of Redfell?

Hello everyone!

So we’ve been able to review Lukka, Bound to Ruin, Nahiri, the Unforgiving, Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting, Nissa, Ascended Animist, and Jace, the Perfected Mind as compleated walkers, Kaya, Intangible Slayer, The Eternal Wanderer, and Koth, Fire of Resistance as our heroes, as well as Phyrexian Obliterator , White Sun’s Twilight, Sword of Forge and Frontier, Tyrranax Rex, Capricious Hellraiser, and Phyrexian Arena, but we have even more sweet cards to preview! Cycles are always fun in new sets, and we have a super sweet one to analyze with the Mythic Phyrexian Horrors, and today, I’m starting with this extremely sweet card – Solphim, Mayhem Dominus!

So per usual, we need to take a look at the stat line. We have a 2RR 5/4 which is pretty par for the course. Especially for Red, you need your four drops to hit hard, and with 5 power, this definitely fits the bill.

Obviously, that’s not what we’d be looking to play it for! With Solphim, all noncombat damage you deal is doubled! This is obviously very powerful text as long as you have enough ways to make use of it.

Finally,like many of the others in the cycle, Solphim can get an indestructible counter as well! For one mana, two phyrexian red mana, and two discarded cards, Solphim can become indestructible. This certainly isn’t a cheap cost, but if you use this in order to net a card either from combat or a removal spell, then you’re only down a card and you have an indestructible threat! Not too bad of a deal!

This card has a lot of good text and seems solid all around, but plenty solid cards never see the light of day. Will this be good enough to make a splash in Standard?

VERDICT

Overall, I don’t think this is as good as Torbran, Thane of Redfell, but it’s going to be very close.

First off, a four mana 5/4 lets this have utility even when you don’t have any follow up. This is a minor, but important feature as if they card isn’t helpful on its own, the utility is very limited.

Second, the ability to double damage done by noncombat damage is extremely scary. Your Play with Fire can deal four damage, Lightning Strike dealing 6? That’s insane! One of the worst aspects of Mono Red is how difficult it is to kill Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, but with this, it doesn’t seem at all difficult! Furthermore, this could synergize with Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer as well to really get wild with removal. Keep in mind that this isn’t instants and sorceries, but all noncombat damage, so even damage from Chandra, Dressed to Kill would be counted as well!

Finally, being able to give this indestructible is really scary when it has a powerful passive ability. Torbran’s obvious biggest weakness was it was somewhat susceptible to removal, but this can protect itself as long as you have one mana up and two cards in hand.

Overall, this will be harder to enable than Torbran was, but similarly powerful and hard to deal with. From what we already have in Standard, this seems very powerful, and if we get any additional tools, this can be a monster. I imagine there’s going to be a lot of turn five wins with this on turn four in Standards future!

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