Pointed Discussion

Perhaps this will make Bant Control a competitive deck again...

This card is slightly less powerful then the oracle, but it certainly helps get rid of smaller mana pockets.

4.5/5 Stars

Puts an interesting twist on scry 1.

Kruphix is either going to be awesome (this block so far has been to kind to the Combine) or suck bad.

My upcoming "Pyxis of Pandemonium" deck LOVES this card.

Continual card advantage, keeps you alive, and gives you (and your opponent, though) some nice information to effect your plays. Great design, great card.

how about red green control with Chandra, Pyromaster? :P

I honestly prefer this over Oracle of Mul Daya. It's cheaper to cast, harder to kill, and gains you life. Only thing is you only play 1 land :P

Karametra Landfall EDH is building itself over here. Great card, plus, there's just something fun about seeing the top card of your library. You can pretend to have plans.

On-curve body, card advantage, lifegain, it does everything doesn't it? If green-based ramp becomes a deck again, it will all be thanks to this card.

On a side note, if you haven't played a land this turn, and the top of your library happens to be a land, you can summon this, then play the land without passing the priority, and gain 1 life. Your opponent won't be able to stop this land drop with an instant removal spell, nor the lifegain trigger.

Oracle of Mul Daya is good for two reasons. One is that it filters your draws, which Courser of Kruphix does as well, AND a turn earlier.

The second reason is ramp. Oracle just powers out double lands turn after turn after turn. Courser can't do that, and that's the fundamental bonus of Mul Daya.

This card isn't bad, by any means. They might even be good in the same deck. But Oracle is Ramp, and this is not.

@Gcrudaplaneswalker mul daya doesn't die to enchantment destruction

As much as I'd like to see this card in a control deck that uses scry lands and stuff like that, it'd be difficult to make a control deck that works well even though you're telling your opponent what you're drawing. I think it's probably better off just getting G devotion to the midgame.

Animar, Soul of Elements waaaaaaaaants!! =D

Are you kidding me?

First an almost seedborn muse. (prophet of kruphix)
And now an sort-of oracle of mul daya?

Kruphix is getting all the cool stuff. i can only imagine what he'll be like in journey to nyx.

She escaped from Zendikar! And I bet she isn't really a true centaur; her upper half is an Oracle of Mul Daya and her lower half is a Grazing Gladehart. They just got merged together when they crossed the Blind Eternities.

She feels like Karametra's to me but then we haven't seen Kruphix so I guess we'll see.

When I first saw this I thought of the prerelease deck I played for m14 - with howl of the nightpack and sporemound and woodborn behemoth - maybe this and karametra, god of the harvest is what they were pointing to? Add in a burnished hart and gift of immortality. Add into the wilds and primeval bounty - and we might have a deck.

Another immediate thought is Pyxis of pandemonium

I could see this in a control deck, even with the "disadvantage" of showing the player the top card of your library. Control is also about mind games, and if they are not playing a Thoughtseize deck, they probably have no idea what the rest of your hand has. Sure, they see a Supreme Verdict on the top--that might keep them from playing creatures or trying non-creature stuff, which could play right into your counter spell trap. Being the only three color control deck that only shocks for 1 might make it a thing. Plus it's a nice body for blocking. I'm going to try it out in a Bant tempo/control deck and see how it performs.

Can you drop more than one land? If you keep turning over land can you keep playing land or limited by one land per turn rule?

Play with fastbond

@bargaincrusader: Good question, and one that I've seen on several other cards like this. Unless a spell or effect explicitly states that you may play multiple lands in one turn, you are limited to playing one; this includes playing one from a zone other than your hand. Worth noting is that there is a difference between playing a land, which is a special action, and putting a land onto the battlefield, which is not.

4 x Courser of Kruphix,
56 x Forest.

Mulligan aggressively.

If I have this out and drop burning tree, does this trigger courser? I assume not but thought i'd check

This doesn't deserve less than five stars, at least as far as Limited and Standard are concerned. Lets look at what she does.

A) In standard, she survives Lightning Strike, Magma Jet, Anger of the Gods and Searing Blood. She survives Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight. Yea, Hero's Downfall, Doom Blade and Detention Sphere are going to hit... but surviving 2/3 of the removal used in Standard, as a THREE MANA CREATURE, is fantastic. Yes, she can be hit by enchantment removal, but really, who mainboards that? Speaking of survival, she's an absolute wall against aggro decks. They aren't getting through her.

B) Not only is she durable as hell, but she is USEFUL! She isn't mana ramp, no, but she is still card advantage in MULTIPLE ways. The first is that she thins out lands from your deck to help you reach solutions faster. In GREEN. Seriously, that is valuable. On TOP of that, she allows you to not waste your Scry Lands. If you see something you like? Play a shock/regular land. If you don't see what you like? Play the scryland, chuck it to the bottom. Who the hell cares if your opponent sees what's coming up? You are bringing the beats if you are playing her, and they know your gonna have a handful of either mana creatures or pain.

C) As if that wasn't enough, she gives you life back. While that doesn't seem nearly as useful, consider this. Your Shock Lands? Yea, now they only cost one life. Have two of these beauties on the field? Your Shock Lands are now free, or +2 life. That is freaking amazing. Oh, and do each of these triggers effect Archangel of Thune, without putting her into any danger from attacking? Why yes, yes they do. My new standard deck is Mono-Green Splash Bant for Archangel and Kiora's Follower. It's fantastic.

D) Lastly? This gives two green devotion.

Seriously guys, under four stars? She's DURABLE, she's CARD ADVANTAGE, she's FREE SHOCKLANDS, and she's GOOD DEVOTION. What the *** else can you ask for in a card. Anyone voting this less than four should just sell their decks.

Quite honestly, i'd take a play set of her over a play set of Boon Satyr any day of the week.

Turns out, if you are playing simic, revealing the top card of your library helps you more than it helps your opponent most of the time. Oh, yeah, the other abilities are nice too.

Simic gets all the best "this card has too many abilities" cards! ahahaha yessss

So check it out, Kiora, the Crashing Wave, top card of library is revealed:
Land? -> play it. gain a life. next card is?
---Land? -> draw it. play it. gain another life. wow.
---Non-land? -> draw it. play another land from hand. gain another life. beast.
Non-land? -> Draw it. reveal what is hopefully a land from the top and play that instead of land from your hand. maybe even reveal another land and play that one too, gaining two life. amazing.

Check it out, Domri Rade, top card of library is revealed:
Land? -> play it. gain a life. get closer to the next creature to +1 Domri.
Creature? -> Domri it. it's quite likely that you reveal a land so feel free to play it.
It's very likely you just got a free land drop and turned Domri's "draw .5 cards" into draw a card, great work.

Same for any scry effect (or draw effect). Theros Temples? Thassa or Ephara? Underworld Connections? Don't forget about the interaction with everyone's favorite angel lately, Archangel of Thune.

There's just too much advantage to gain with this card, Bant control and Gruul monsters are running 4x this girl in droves and it's no surprise the price has gone up.

It would be too OP if it played the way it reads, but the way it reads is that you can play any amount of lands that is showing on the top of your deck. The fact that it is ruled the way that it is, is the best for the game but bad for magic in general. Making cards do one thing when they read another way is bad for less experienced players. "You may play the top card of your library if it's a land card." .... it makes it sound like it's something extra to your normal land play and unlimited. It would be as if it said 'You may draw if you have less cards in hand than your opponent" .... it's a condition that is normally limited to once per turn and has a selective condition associated with it, the card text needs to have a stipulation any time there is the possibility of blanket misinterpretation. It should read 'Play with the top card of your library revealed, if it's a land card you may play it, this counts as your land for the turn. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, gain 1 life.' or something very similar.

Love the card, but am shocked that WOTC didn't change this text prior to print.

Usually you want to drop this T4 so you get the extra card (land) out of him if it's on top of the library. Next to a Sensei's I imagine you could get some serious work out of this guy between fixing your draws and getting your lands out too.

T1: Fastbond
T2: Scouting Trek
T3: Courser of Kruphix and play all of your land

@toxn

It does play the way it reads if you know and follow the rules of the game and don't try to read between the lines. It may be confusing for new players, sure, but Magic is deliberate in its wording. A card only lets you do exactly what it says it lets you do unless there's a ruling that says otherwise, and nowhere on this card does it say the "play only one land per turn" rule has stopped functioning. New players need to learn this rule not just for this card, but many, many others, especially when it comes to the "put into play" vs. "play" distinction - and they need to learn to watch for purposefully-chosen wording such as "play" on this card. Granted, there are not many cards with comparable effects, but contrast it with Oracle of Mul Daya for an easy example of how this language is standard - if you get to play more than one land per turn, the card WILL tell you.

Reminder text on this matter probably wouldn't have killed them, but there's not exactly a lot of room left over.

Oracle of Mul Daya is now cheaper, but loses her over-supported tribal. At least she can now survive a Lightning Bolt. *slow clap*

Scouting Trek just got the over-the-top piece it needed. 5/5.

The first theros block card to see consistent play in the maindeck of a tier 1 deck in any format other than standard & EDH (modern jund, after DRS got the axe)

Finally.

I feel like anything with Kruphix in the title is bound to be good at this point. Also, if this had flanking.......

Played in Modern already at high levels, not being hate rated as far as I can tell, and less than 4? Not to mention it was one of the strongest factors in there actually being a metagame at all post Born of the Gods. Should be something like a 4.25 or so. The art is well matched to the effect, and I'm digging the fact most of the women on the Theros Block cards have reasonable clothes and physique (given that this is a centaur that is...)

Let's hope the god really makes G/U a deck. Prophet and Courser are just too awesome to be let down.

A beautiful reason to play green.

This isn't great in my G/U deck. It is, however, quite good in G/R/? Decks using Domri Rade and/or Garruk, Caller of Beasts. Also quite useful in some of the more draw-oriented decks with somewhat higher land ratios. I would play it, but I have 2 issues with it. For one, I usually ramp from 2-4 and I don't run many lands. The thing that really makes it a problem, though, is the fact that I am running counterspells Syncopate,Plasm Capture and whatnot. Therefore, I kinda want my hand to be ambiguous, which it wouldn't be with this. Good card, but not nearly as friendly to kruphix as the prophet is.


Update: I'm side boarding at least 2 of these as of now. It took the place of Horizon Chimera because it is more durable against the meta at my LGS- lots of B/R aggro and Golgari/ Jund monsters. This holds up against Shock,Magma Jet,Lightning Strike,Anger of the Gods,Searing Blood,Magma Spray,Polukranos, World Eater... The life gain is surprisingly useful, a 2-2 split with Scavenging Ooze has proven very helpful in life races. It's a very good card, even better than I initially estimated. Easy to see why this has seen play in modern; play a fetchland off the top, see what's coming up, crack the fetch if you don't like it and net 1 life overall. 5/5

It's still a bit of a shame it doesn't work like Mul-Daya, but then again, if it did that would be stupid.

Draws you cards (indirectly), gains you life, survives Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods, blocks well, has uber-synergy with Domri Rade, Chandra, Pyromaster & scrylands, and adds +2/+2 to Tarmogoyf when it dies. This card is fantastic!

I... LOVE this card. It's FANTASTIC with my B/U deck.

Wait what?
Oh no no no, sorry... I love it when my opponent thinks he should use this card against my B/U deck.

I have had several games where I'm sitting with an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, and a few Nightveil Specters. Turn begins, check their top card. If it's a threat, I +2 Ashiok, take the cards and look again. Still a threat? I swing with my nightveils. Still a threat? Probably not, but sure, sometimes something has to get through.

Honestly, I will take 2 damage per turn from this guy with a smile on my face if he's the one letting me force all my opponent's draws to be land-draws.

Honestly, he's a great card with a clever balance between advantage and drawback, who just so happens to give top-deck-manipulator-decks a lot of options.

Compensates a fetchland (whose shuffling works w/ the top of library bit. Duh).