10 best cards in Magic: The Gathering - Kaldheim
Viking for a play.
With Magic: The Gathering’s Viking-themed set now fully revealed, we’ve decided it’s the perfect time to drill into the best cards in Kaldheim. It’s an impressive set with a lot of potential and some incredibly entertaining cards, but not all of them can make the cut when you’re talking about the formats outside of Draft or Sealed.
Thematically, nearly every card in Kaldheim is an absolute banger - the kind of thing you could happily sing a song about while drinking mead and doing your taxes. But that’s not what makes for the best overall cards. It’s not all about flavour; it’s about power. Sometimes that’s going to be subtle, sometimes it’ll be like being hit in the face by Thor’s hammer, but it’ll always be there.
Best MTG Kaldheim cards
- Doomskar: Ragnarök in card form.
- Dream Devourer: Is this broken?
- Birgi, God of Storytelling/Harnfel, Horn of Bounty: Popping off.
- Cosima, God of the Voyage/The Omenkeel: A lot of options.
- Mystic Reflection: We are legion.
- Righteous Valkyrie: Being alive is a superpower.
- Starnheim Unleashed: What do you call a group of angels?
- Maskwood Nexus: I am Spartacus.
- Esika, God of the Tree/The Prismatic Bridge: Five-colour supreme.
- Orvar, the All-Form: Among Us.
Each of these cards has the potential to warp things around it like a blackhole crushing everything into a fine paste that not even light can escape. Assuming you understand the gravity of that situation, you should be well-prepped to deal with the immense weight of our picks today.
Some of these have a more obvious format to show off in than others, but they’ve all got a lot of potential to shake things up. Even if they’re not immediately overwhelming, we have full faith that the MTG community will find something obnoxious to do with them one day. Let’s get into our picks of the ten best Kaldheim cards.
1. Doomskar
Ragnarök in card form
Board wipes - that is cards that can clear the board state in one go - are generally only good at four mana. There are exceptions to this depending on the meta at the time and the format you’re talking about, but four mana really seems to be the sweet spot. It’s just cheap enough to be playable when you need it in aggressive games, and also allows you to play counterspells or whatever else you want later on without requiring a hefty mana base.
Well, Doomskar is technically a five-mana spell. In fact, you’ll nearly always be paying five mana for it, but it turns out that it’s got a really good credit rating or something, because you don’t have to pay it all at once. Thanks to the new Foretell mechanic introduced in Kaldheim, you can pay two mana to exile the card from your hand facedown and then pay three mana later to cast it. This makes it incredibly versatile, and it’s bound to be a key player in Standard control decks as long as it’s around.
2. Dream Devourer
Is this broken?
On the subject of Foretell, Dream Devourer is a card that might just show the mechanic is a mistake. It might not, of course, but as it stands, we’re keeping a very close eye on this card. Dream Devourer is a Demon Cleric 0/3 Black creature that only costs two mana. Whenever you foretell a card, it gets +2 power until the end of the turn.
That’s not all though; it also gives all of your cards foretell even if they don’t normally have it. You can pay two mana to exile it as you would with the mechanic, and then cast it on a later turn for two mana less than it would normally cost. This gives you an incredible outlet for any spare mana you have floating around, and foretell effectively increases your hand size every time you use it, too.
3. Birgi, God of Storytelling/Harnfel, Horn of Bounty
Popping off
The first of the gods on this list is Birgi, who can also be cast as a horn. Harnfel, Horn of Bounty is a five-mana Red artifact that lets you discard a card to exile the top two cards of your library; you can then play them on that turn. That’s two cards for the price of one. Stonks!
Birgi is where it’s at, though. They are a three-mana Red 3/3 who allows you to use the new boast abilities twice during your turn if you want. Also - and this is a minor thing that’s definitely not going to be abused to bring out chaotic combos at any point - she gives you one Red mana whenever you cast a spell. We’re confident that that’s fine and not at all silly.
4. Cosima, God of the Voyage/The Omenkeel
A lot of options
Our second god once again has two very good sides. Cosima herself is a three mana Blue 2/4 that has a lot of text. The short of it is that you can exile her at the beginning of your upkeep, and then whenever a land enters, you can either bring her back or put a voyage counter on her. When she returns she comes in with X +1/+1 counters and you draw X cards all equal to the number of voyage counters. That’s just a lot of value.
The Omenkeel is a fancy boat that turns into a 3/3, costs just two mana and only requires a power of 1 to crew it. It also turns every vehicle you control into a machine that exiles cards from your opponent’s library and allows you to cast those cards. Basically, The Omenkeel is a vessel to value town- and we’re ready to ride it.
5. Mystic Reflection
We are legion
Mystic Reflection is a Blue instant that costs two mana. It reads: “Choose target nonlegendary creature. The next time one or more creatures or planeswalkers enter the battlefield this turn, they enter as copies of the chosen creature instead.”
Basically, you can choose to have an opponent’s planeswalker or world-ending creature come in as a 1/1 Thopter instead. If you’d rather use it for your own gain, you can have your army of 1/1 soldiers created by Secure the Wastes come in as Craterhoof Behemoths instead. There’s a lot of very silly things you can do with this card, and we love it.
6. Righteous Valkyrie
Being alive is a superpower
White has had a bit of a rough time in MTG over the last few years. This is mostly because every other mana colour has been doing a lot of what White normally does, but also because it never seems to get the most upsettingly busted cards either. While Righteous Valkyrie isn’t exactly broken, it’s hard not to see the potential of it in the right deck.
This Valkyrie gives you life equal to the toughness of any angels or clerics that enter the battlefield under your control. That’s not bad on its own, but it also gives all of your creatures +2/+2 if you have at least seven more life than you started with. Life gain decks can occasionally falter because they are good at staying alive, but not great at killing the opponent. This somehow does both things very well.
7. Starnheim Unleashed
What do you call a group of angels?
Speaking of angels, what if there was a way to make just loads of them? Starnheim Unleashed is a four-mana White sorcery that lets you make one 4/4 Angel with Flying and Vigilance. That’s not terrible on its own, but it’s not the best bit.
The best bit is that it has Foretell, and you can foretell it for XX White instead. This allows you to sink loads of mana into it, and you get one Angel for every two mana you spend basically. That allows you to create a massive army of flying bodies to just crush your foes with. If you happen to have Righteous Valkyrie out too, you’ll gain loads of life (four per Angel) and likely end up with a motley crew of 6/6s instead. We recommend getting six 6/6s just for the fun of it, but it’s up to you.
8. Maskwood Nexus
I am Spartacus
The last three on our list are heavily Commander-focused, but it’s a great format, so we’re going with it. Maskwood Nexus is a four-mana artifact that basically turns every deck into a tribal deck.
It makes every creature you control into every creature type, and even applies this effect while they’re not on the battlefield and to spells as you cast them. This means that if you’ve got a card that has an effect whenever an angel enters the battlefield, you can cast a Goblin and it’ll trigger it. This has a lot of obscene applications. You can also pay three mana and tap it to make a 2/2 with every creature type - we don’t expect that to be the most important part, though.
9. Esika, God of the Tree/The Prismatic Bridge
Five-colour supreme
They say that fools rush in, and also that they play five-colour Commander decks. We say that the people that say that are the fools, we actually have very big brains. The only real issue with these kinds of EDH decks is the lack of variety for the commander and the mana base. Esika, God of the Tree handles both of those problems with aplomb. The God side, a mono Green creature, effectively gives all of your legendary creatures the ability to generate mana of any colour.
The reverse side, which is a five-colour enchantment, makes you reveal cards from the top of your library until you hit a creature or planeswalker, which you can then put onto the battlefield for free. You do this every turn during your upkeep. This is absurd, and we love it.
10. Orvar, the All-Form
Among Us
Orvar, the All-Form is a four-mana Blue 3/3 legendary creature. It reads: “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if it targets one or more other permanents you control, create a token that’s a copy of one of those permanents.” This effect also occurs if your opponent makes you discard a permanent, as you then get a token of it.
This card is a dream for any decks looking to play a lot of one permanent, and allows for infinite combos at a rate that makes us a little sick to think about. The fact that it’s Blue fits the theme, but it also means you’ve got access to plenty of spells that will allow you to utilise this to either control the board state, your opponent’s hands, their library - or basically whatever else you want.