Soul of Emancipation: Exclusive Streets of New Capenna Preview!
It's Brokers day in the world of Streets of New Capenna spoilers and thanks to Wizards hooking us up, we've got an exclusive Streets of New Capenna preview card to show off for you all today. Are you looking for a finisher for your Bant...err...Brokers deck? Meet Soul of Emancipation!
Soul of Emancipation is a seven-mana Bant 5/7 with an enters-the-battlefield trigger that can destroy up to three nonland permanents and then gives the controller of those permanents a 3/3 flying Angel token in their place. If this sounds familiar, it's because Soul of Emancipation is very similar to Terastodon...
In a vacuum, Soul of Emancipation is a mostly worse version of Terastodon, although this isn't especially important in Standard since Terastodon is more than a decade old and not legal in the format. While it does cost one less mana, it also requires three colors, so this is probably a wash in 60-card formats and a pretty big negative in Commander, where color identity rules will keep Soul of Emancipation out of some decks where Terastodon can see play. While the effects of the two cards are similar—you get to blow up three permanents and replace them with 3/3 tokens—there are three huge differences.
First and most importantly, Terastodon can blow up any non-creature permanent, while Soul of Emancipation has a nonland clause. This makes Soul of Emancipation much harder to use effectively. In general, there are two ways to use Terastodon: either you try to reanimate it quickly and blow up your opponent's mana, or you play it in the late game and blow up some of your own extra lands, potentially adding up to 18 power and toughness (along with four bodies) to the battlefield. Soul of Emancipation can't really do either of those things.
On the other hand, Soul of Emancipation has a massive upside as compared to Terastodon: it can hit creatures! Just how meaningful the ability to blow up your opponent's creatures is will really depend on the matchup. If you're playing against an aggro deck, there's a decent chance that the 3/3 Angel that Soul of Emancipation gives your opponent will be bigger than whatever creature you blow up, which is awkward. On the other hand, downgrading big threats like Hullbreaker Horror or Goldspan Dragon into a vanilla 3/3 flier sounds pretty nice, as is dealing with things like Lier, Disciple of the Drowned or freeing a creature from Brutal Cathar.
While using Soul of Emancipation to destroy opposing creatures in Standard might be a bit hit or miss, it seems pretty strong in Commander. Terastodon will never answer your opponent's Commander, while Soul of Emancipation will. In fact, if all of your opponents have their commanders on the battlefield, Soul of Emancipation can answer them all. While this will likely lead to a bunch of 3/3 Angels attacking you during the next couple of turn cycles, this is probably still a worthwhile trade in some situations, considering how powerful some commanders are.
The other reason hitting creatures matters is that it allows you to upgrade your own creatures with Soul of Emancipation. Picture this scenario: you play a Prosperous Innkeeper and get a Treasure token. The next turn, you follow up with Soul of Emancipation and blow up your opponent's best nonland permanent along with your Treasure and Prosperous Innkeeper. The end result is that you'll end up with a 5/7 and two 3/3 fliers at the cost of a 1/1 Innkeeper and a Treasure token, while your opponent will have one 3/3 Angel and be down their strongest permanent. Seems pretty reasonable.
Finally, Terastodon makes 3/3 ground creatures, while Soul of Emancipation makes fliers. This means that playing Soul of Emancipation and blowing up three of your opponent's things is going to be pretty risky because you'll be giving your opponent nine power worth of fliers that they can use to kill you. With Terastodon, you can blow up two of your opponent's things and one of yours. Because Terastodon can block one of the Elephant tokens it makes, you'll be able to block all of the creatures you give your opponent and avoid taking any damage.
When you add all this together, in a vacuum, Soul of Emancipation is a bad version of Terastodon, and Terastodon isn't really a heavily played card anymore. In 60-card formats, it has been outclassed by other reanimation targets, while in Commander, it mostly only sees play in "big creature matters" decks like Myojin of Life's Web, Nikya of the Old Ways, or Mayael the Anima. Even if these decks wanted Soul of Emancipation as a backup version of Terastodon, they wouldn't be able to play it because of its Bant color identity.
The good news is that cards don't see play in a vacuum, and Soul of Emancipation could be quite strong in some situations. While making 3/3 Angels is a drawback if you are blowing up your opponent's stuff, it's an upside if you are blowing up your own permanents, and I think this will be the best way to use the Avatar. Let's say you play Soul of Emancipation and blow up three Treasure or Blood tokens you control. The end result is that, for seven mana, you'll get a 5/7 ground creature and three 3/3 flying Angels, for a total of 14 power and 16 toughness across four bodies, which is a pretty great deal.
It also interacts really well with indestructible permanents. In Standard, the dream is to kick a Skyclave Relic to make three Darksteel Ingots, untap the following turn, play Soul of Emancipation, target all three of them, and make three 3/3 flying Angels without losing any permanents at all! Unless your opponent untaps and wraths, there's a pretty good chance this will be enough to win the game.
It's also worth mentioning that we have plenty of good reanimation in Standard to help cheat Soul of Emancipation into play on the cheap, which is nice. The problem is that we've also got some really strong reanimation targets in Standard, between Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Toxrill, the Corrosive, Hullbreaker Horror, and Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant. Is Soul of Emancipation on their level? Only time will tell for sure, although my guess is that Soul of Emancipation will be a solid second-tier reanimation target rather than the best reanimation target in its deck.
Another possibility is to take advantage of the fact that Soul of Emancipation makes Angels. While not a ton of cards care specifically about Angels entering the battlefield, there are a couple, including Righteous Valkyrie, which sees quite a bit of play in Standard. While I'm not sure that tier builds of Bant Angels or various Righteous Valkyrie–fueled lifegain decks will want to play a seven-drop, the potential does exist to use Soul of Emancipation to gain a ton of life and build a pretty massive board of Angels.
As far as Commander is concerned, I don't think that Soul of Emancipation is the kind of card you can toss into any deck. Well, I guess you could and use it like a triple Beast Within. But as we discussed before, people don't really play Terastodon in random decks anymore, and Soul of Emancipation isn't quite as good as Terastodon is unless you build around it. However, Soul of Emancipation can offer a lot of value in specific decks.
Potential home number one is blink decks. Because Soul of Emancipation has an enters-the-battlefield trigger, if you can blink it with Roon of the Hidden Realm, Soulherder, or Brago, King Eternal, you can potentially reuse its ability each turn, turning all of your opponents' best permanents into Angels or upgrading your lackluster permanents into 3/3 fliers. Imagine playing a Soul of Emancipation with a Panharmonicon on the battlefield, blowing up Skyclave Relics to make six 3/3 Angels, and then blinking it on your end step with Teleportation Circle to do it again! That's a massive flying board for just seven mana! Just keep in mind that you're going to need things to target with Soul of Emancipation's enters-the-battlefield trigger for this plan to work. It becomes much less exciting if you're blowing up "real" cards to get the Angels, so ways to generate Treasure, Clue, Blood, or even just small creature tokens are going to be essential.
The other place where Soul of Emancipation could be good in Commander is in token decks. While Bant isn't the most popular token color, mostly because there isn't a great token-focused Bant legend, there is a lot of really good token support in the color combination, thanks to the Simic Token deck from Commander 2021 that featured cards like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters and Esix, Fractal Bloom. In a token deck, you'll likely have cards like Anointed Procession and Doubling Season to make even more Angels with Soul of Emancipation, and you'll likely have some small 1/1 tokens lying around that you can upgrade.
Conclusion
In all honesty, I don't expect Soul of Emancipation to see all that much play in any format. While it can be powerful in the right deck, especially if you can blow up your own permanents to make a huge board of Angels, to me, it seems like the kind of card you need to build around, at least a bit, rather than something you can just jam into any deck that can cast it. The synergy with Blood / Clue / Treasure tokens as well as Skyclave Relic is intriguing in Standard, and I'm planning to build a deck to test it out. But I expect it might be more of an Against the Odds deck than a competitive option, especially since Koma, Cosmos Serpent exists at the same mana cost and in the same colors. In older 60-card formats, Terastodon is just a better version for any deck that would want it because being able to blow up lands is much more important than blowing up creatures. In Commander, it has the potential to do some really cool things, but you likely need to be a blink deck or a token deck to really take advantage of Soul of Emancipation's power. Seven mana buys a lot in Commander, and while being able to answer opposing commanders and other nonland permanents is nice, I'm not sure Soul of Emancipation is quite on the same level as Avenger of Zendikar, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Nyxbloom Ancient, Agent of Treachery, or various Primordials, in terms of raw power in a generic deck, although it can be a very synergistic and powerful finisher in the right deck.
Anyway, that's all for today! Thanks to Wizards for hooking us up with a sweet preview card! What do you think of Soul of Emancipation? Let us know in the comments! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
