As we near the end of spoiler season, multitudes of incredible, scary cards keep getting spoiled. Alongside an enchantress with Flash and a cute dog that inspires your other creatures, we now have a beast that can literally cheat in Omniscience for free.
Kona, Rescue Beastie is a difficult card to assess. the potential upside that this card offers is gigantic, but for four mana, will it really excel in the formats where it has a chance? Many players don’t just expect this card to thrive, but they expect it to be a problem.
Kona, Rescue Beastie
- Mana Value: #G
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 4/3
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: Survivial – At the beginning of your second main phase, if Kona, Rescue Beastie is tapped, you may put a permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield.
Kona, Rescue Beastie is incredibly straightforward. This card wants to be tapped, and if it is, you can put any permanent you want into play. It could be an Emrakul or it could also be a Squirrel. The world is your oyster.
So, the only real hoops you need to jump through for Kona to cheat something devastating into play – besides having the card in your hand – is to tap this card and have it survive to your second main phase. The most obvious way to do this is to attack, but that not only means your Beastie needs to survive combat. It would also need to shake off its summoning sickness somehow.
Thankfully, there are much better ways to utilize this card.
How to Use Your Beastie
There are a ton of different cards that will tap your own creatures in exchange for a benefit. Cards like Springleaf Drum stand out among these. These can both tap your creature and generate mana. Ramp is a powerful thing in any deck, and Kona allows Springleaf Drum to have a secondary function.
Not only will Kona not need to go to combat, but you can also tap your Kona the turn you deploy it. This can allow Kona to catch your opponent off guard, cheating in an Omniscience the same turn it enters play. From there, winning is trivial. As a reminder, Omniscience is slanted to be released in MTG Foundations, which means that it will be Standard legal.
While cheating in powerful, game-ending spells may be the most exciting way to use Kona, the card could also be used in an interesting Convoke shell. Tap it with a card like Warden of the Inner Sky to cheat in a larger Convoke threat in your second main phase. Heck, maybe a similar deck to the Collector’s Cage white deck in Modern becomes a thing in Standard. Use your Beastie to cheat in random copies of Atraxa or Valgavoth with a combination of Collector’s Cage and the Beastie.
Sure, there isn’t really a place where this card fits into any given metagame right now, but Kona is powerful enough to give rise to a deck inspired by the card itself. This isn’t an upgrade to an existing force, it’s a new force in itself.
Kona is Expected to be a Problem
Many players already expect Kona, Rescue Beastie to be an issue, especially when factoring in what just got banned in Pioneer. Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord saw a ban for doing something very similar to Kona. While you need to jump through another hurdle to use Kona, you can win the game on the spot should its ability resolve.
Expect to see a lot of Kona in Commander, Standard, and even Pioneer.
Read More: MTG 2025 Release Calendar
