Magic: The Gathering green decks just got a new tool thanks to a rare creature in the game’s newest set, Theros: Beyond Death (THB). Elysia Grove Dryad opens up a lot of doorways once it hits the battlefield and lets you play extra lands for some bonus value.
The card’s Japanese version was the one shown first and its official English translation has yet to become available. A rough translation is available, though, courtesy of Scryfall:
Enchantment Creature — Nymph
You may play an additional land each turn.
Lands you control are all basic land types in addition to their other types.
This card is bonkers and plays extremely well with a number of powerful cards in Standard. To start, it slots easily into most green ramp decks. Extra land plays are always a plus.
But its second ability is where this hunk really shines. Making lands into all basic land types gives you access to every color of mana in the game. Theoretically, once you play this card, you can follow it up with any spell in Standard. This is a major five-color deck enabler, similar to last year’s Chromatic Lantern.
The ability to give all lands basic land types even has additional, powerful synergies. One of the strongest cards in the format, Nissa, Who Shakes the World, gives extra green mana when you tap Forests. With this Dryad, all your lands are Forests, even if they don’t tap for mana like Fabled Passage.
Dig even deeper and you’ll find cards like Dread Presence that give Swamps powerful enters-the-battlefield effects. The bottom line here is that Elysia Grove Dryad is just waiting to be broken.
