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Will Tyrranax Rex Be This Standard’s Carnage Tyrant?

Carnage Tyrant was one of the baddest threats on Ixalan, and we have a spruced up version with Tyrranax Rex! Will this new Dino stomp on Standard or will this go extinct on entry?

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, and Sword of Forge and Frontier, but we have even more sweet cards to preview! Back in the Ixalan days, Carnage Tyrant was the top win condition of the format, and now we see their older sibling – Tyrranax Rex!

Now that’s one big dino!

We have a seven mana, triple Green, 8/8 which is a reasonable stat line for a creature of that cost. From there, it’s just keyword soup.

Being uncounterable is huge as the worst part about playing a large threat is it getting answered for little mana, Trample makes it very tough to block fully, Ward 4 is not quite hexproof, but pretty close, Haste is also awesome as that’s a functional ETB ability, and Toxic is there because, presumably, Tyrranax Rex doesn’t have access to a shower (in seriousness, it doesn’t look like it would have much bearing on the card).

So yeah, keyword soup. Back in Ixalan, Carnage Tyrant was prized for being keyword soup, but on it, Hexproof was definitely the most important. Can Tyrranax Rex be the same menace Tyrant was back in the day?

VERDICT

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Despite how strong this card is, I still think it’s a bit of a tossup right now. First off, there’s obviously a lot to like. This card hits like a truck, should never really die in combat, and should at least get one attack down before be answered. In that sense, this is very Carnage Tyrant like, but unfortunately, there’s multiple reasons it’s still not.

First off, despite Ward 4 being big, it is not Hexproof. Go for the Throat is an extremely played removal spell, and while it’ll cost six mana for them to use it, that still kills this cleanly. For what it’s worth, they need six mana to kill it, but not only do they get a mana advantage over you, by the time you’re casting Tyrranax Rex, you can assume the opponent has a comparable amount of mana.

The second problem is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (and to a lesser extent, Phyrexian Obliterator). Since Sheoldred, the Apocalpyse just had to have Deathtouch, if the opponent has one out, you can’t really do anything with your seven drop which is pretty much the nightmare scenario.

Third, the bane of all things Ward and Hexproof, Invoke Despair is still very much a real card, and if this is your only creature, that’s a disgusting blowout.

Fourth, Green sees pretty much no play in Standard right now, so despite being a good card, there’s no guarantee it’ll have a home.

That is a lot of factors going against our big Dino friend, and even despite all that, the card is good enough that it should see some play. This won’t be Carnage Tyrant as that card was extremely well positioned in the format it was in, but if Black decks become less popular somehow, this could occupy a very similar space.

Thank you for reading! Agree or disagree? Come join our Discord community, discuss the new spoilers, and more.

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DoggertQBones
DoggertQBones

Robert "DoggertQBones" Lee is the content manager of MTGAZone and a high ranked Arena player. He has one GP Top 8 and pioneered popular archetypes like UB 8 Shark, UB Yorion, and GW Company in Historic. Beyond Magic, his passions are writing and coaching! Join our community on
Twitch and Discord.

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