Iconic MTG Star Trek Villain Unlocks Infinite Mana and Card Draw With 27-Year-Old Combo Engine

Today’s MTG star Trek Debut was an absolute banger, packing in a ton of fantastic main set cards, some spicy reprints, and a batch of great new Commander cards as well. Perhaps the most exciting card of the day came not from here, however, but from the WeeklyMTG aftershow. During this stream, we got our first glimpse of Khan, Vengeful Heart: a new MTG legend that goes incredibly hard with one of the game’s most beloved combo enchantments.

Khan, Vengeful Heart MTG

Any MTG player familiar with Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. will have started ringing alarm bells as soon as they saw Khan, Vengeful Heart. This card’s ‘cast from exile’ ability is notoriously broken with the enchantment, as we’ve seen before with creatures like Squee, the Immortal Squee, the Immortal You may cast this card from your graveyard or from exile. and Misthollow Griffin Misthollow Griffin Flying
You may cast this card from exile. .

Essentially, with Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. out, you can exile Khan, making five black mana, then cast it again from exile, netting one black overall. You can then repeat this infinite times to make infinite mana of all colors, but you can only spend that mana on creatures. From here, you can sink your infinite mana into a Walking Ballista Walking Ballista This creature enters with X +1/+1 counters on it.
{4}: Put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
Remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature: It deals 1 damage to any target. to win the game on the spot, or simply wear your opponents down with infinite triggers from something like Impact Tremors Impact Tremors Whenever a creature you control enters, this enchantment deals 1 damage to each opponent. or Altar of the Brood Altar of the Brood Whenever another permanent you control enters, each opponent mills a card. .

What sets Khan apart from the other ‘cast from exile’ creatures in Magic, however, is that it’s not just a vanilla creature. Khan also has Costly Plunder Costly Plunder As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice an artifact or creature.
Draw two cards. attached, which gives it much more utility than its peers. This also lets you draw your whole deck during the Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. loop, provided you’re playing Commander.

Once you’ve generated infinite mana with Khan and Chain, you can cast and sacrifice your Commander for two cards, then recast it from the command zone to repeat the process. This will let you dig for any of the above combo pieces, or empty your deck for a win with Doctor Doom, Unrivaled Doctor Doom, Unrivaled Lifelink
{T}: You draw a card and lose 1 life. Then if your library has no cards in it, you win the game. (You win even if you have 0 life or didn't draw a card.) or Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) .

Thanks to this interaction, Khan is now the best Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. combo piece in Commander by far, as it cuts down on the number of pieces needed to win on the spot. With the advent of Pia, Aether Ascetic Pia, Aether Ascetic When Pia enters, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. making Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. decks much more consistent, we could see a serious comeback for the archetype soon, perhaps even way up in cEDH.

Notably, Khan is also a major improvement for Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. decks in Legacy. These decks typically play four colors (everything but red) already, so adding Khan won’t tax the mana base. Khan’s sacrifice/draw loop can also be used here to an extent, though it’s unlikely to net you a guaranteed win without a Commander present. Since Khan is a legendary creature, it can also come down through countermagic thanks to Delighted Halfling Delighted Halfling {T}: Add {C}.
{T}: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a legendary spell, and that spell can't be countered. , which is already a staple in the deck. Because of all these benefits, I expect Legacy Food Chain to cut both Misthollow Griffin Misthollow Griffin Flying
You may cast this card from exile. and Eternal Scourge Eternal Scourge You may cast this card from exile.
When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, exile this creature. for this new banger.

A Villain for All Seasons

While its interactions with Food Chain are the most exciting part of Khan, Vengeful Heart, it still has plenty to offer elsewhere. It’s easy to miss, but this is one of only two creatures that can turn a creature into a guaranteed two cards on entry, the other being the underwhelming Unscrupulous Contractor Unscrupulous Contractor When this creature enters, you may sacrifice a creature. When you do, target player draws two cards and loses 2 life.
Plot {2}{B} (You may pay {2}{B} and exile this card from your hand. Cast it as a sorcery on a later turn without paying its mana cost. Plot only as a sorcery.) . This makes it a fantastic addition to any kind of Aristocrats deck in Commander, like Teysa Karlov Teysa Karlov If a creature dying causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.
Creature tokens you control have vigilance and lifelink. or Meren of Clan Nel-Toth Meren of Clan Nel-Toth Whenever another creature you control dies, you get an experience counter.
At the beginning of your end step, choose target creature card in your graveyard. If that card's mana value is less than or equal to the number of experience counters you have, return it to the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand. .

On top of that, Khan can sacrifice artifacts too, which gives it a ton of value in Treasure-focused decks, like Smaug, Wicked Worm Smaug, Wicked Worm Flying
When Smaug enters, create X tapped Treasure tokens, where X is the number of artifacts your opponents control.
Whenever you cast a spell, if mana from a Treasure was spent to cast it, you draw a card and lose 1 life. . While spells like Deadly Dispute Deadly Dispute As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice an artifact or creature.
Draw two cards and create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") have offered the same utility for a while, Khan being a creature makes it much more abusable. You can reanimate Khan with something like Ruthless Technomancer Ruthless Technomancer When this creature enters, you may sacrifice another creature you control. If you do, create a number of Treasure tokens equal to that creature's power.
{2}{B}, Sacrifice X artifacts: Return target creature card with power X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. X can't be 0. to get more draw, for example, or blink it with Conjurer’s Closet Conjurer’s Closet At the beginning of your end step, you may exile target creature you control, then return that card to the battlefield under your control. to do the same.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Khan’s ‘cast from exile’ clause has a lot of applications beyond just Food Chain Food Chain Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is 1 plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. . You can pitch it to something like Force of Despair Force of Despair If it's not your turn, you may exile a black card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Destroy all creatures that entered this turn. , or use it as fuel for a creature like Abhorrent Oculus Abhorrent Oculus As an additional cost to cast this spell, exile six cards from your graveyard.
Flying
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, manifest dread. (Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature and the other into your graveyard. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it's a creature card.) , then just re-cast Khan later. Though these lines were possible with all the previous ‘cast from exile’ creatures too, the fact that they were just vanilla bodies made doing so far from worth it. Khan’s utility flips this dynamic on its head, however, opening the door for some interesting Commander plays.

We’ve mostly talked about Khan as a Commander prospect so far, but it could genuinely see play in current Standard as well. Right now, Jund Sacrifice is a real contender in the metagame, and Khan fits in there like a glove. Extra sacrifice draw is more than welcome alongside Obsessive Pursuit Obsessive Pursuit When this enchantment enters and at the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and create a Clue token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")
Whenever you attack, put X +1/+1 counters on target attacking creature, where X is the number of permanents you've sacrificed this turn. If X is three or more, that creature gains lifelink until end of turn. and Greedy Freebooter Greedy Freebooter When this creature dies, scry 1 and create a Treasure token. (To scry 1, look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom. A Treasure token is an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") , as the success of The Sackville-Bagginses The Sackville-Bagginses When The Sackville-Bagginses enter, you may sacrifice another creature or artifact. If you do, draw a card and create a Treasure token.
Whenever you sacrifice a token, target opponent loses 1 life. has proved. Khan’s 5/3 stats are hardly embarrassing, either, which makes it a very solid play at most stages of the game. The card could also become a roleplayer in Modern Kethis Combo decks as a weird sideboard tech piece against graveyard hate like Rest in Peace Rest in Peace When this enchantment enters, exile all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. .

Overall, Khan, Vengeful Heart is one of the spiciest new MTG legends we’ve seen in some time. Not only is it an absurd combo enabler in older formats, but it’s also just a solid fair card that should slot into a ton of different decks, in both Commander and constructed. If the rest of Star Trek spoiler season is packed with cards as good as this one, then we’re in for a real treat come November.

Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!