Now that players have had around two weeks to try out the new MTG Avatar cards, we’re starting to get a sense of their overall power level. The big chase mythics, like Badgermole Cub, are, as expected, putting up plenty of results. What’s more surprising is how many cards managed to slip under the collective radar.
The Legend of Roku, for example, is a mythic that barely any MTG players took notice of during preview season. Turns out it’s an absolute powerhouse, however, reinvigorating one of the best decks in Modern while also seeing testing in a range of red lists in Standard.
The Legend Of Roku MTG
Looking at it now, The Legend of Roku is clearly a quality piece of MTG cardboard. The front side is essentially a red Harmonize with a small mana boost upside. While it’s a little clunky, “draw three for four mana” is still a more than acceptable rate in many game states. There’s always the chance you can’t use all three cards before they’re gone for good, but that’s the nature of Impulse draw.
Where The Legend of Roku really gets cooking is on the back side. Firebending 4 is a pretty ridiculous ability, especially if you have instant-speed plays to spend it on. Even if you don’t, you can simply funnel the mana into Roku’s activated ability and start producing 4/4 Dragon tokens. These also come with Firebending 4, so you can very quickly get in a position where your Dragons are paying for more Dragons, and your opponent simply can’t keep up.
Taken together as a package, The Legend of Roku is a card advantage piece that also presents an inevitable threat in the late game. It’s the ideal Control card, in other words, which players have quickly cottoned on to since release. Red doesn’t typically get these kinds of grindy value cards, hence the mythical “Big Red” deck that never really materializes. With The Legend of Roku, however, it has a genuine contender in this category.
A New Kind Of Energy
This is perhaps most evident in The Legend of Roku’s stellar performance in Modern Boros Energy. Since its release, the card has been showing up in a ton of different builds of the deck; over 340, in fact, according to MTGDecks. For the most part, this has been in the sideboard, as an unexpected hedge against grindy matchups like Jeskai Blink.
As MTG players have pointed out on social media, bringing out The Legend of Roku from the sideboard allows the deck to shift gears and adopt more of a Control playstyle. This makes a ton of sense when you consider Boros Energy as a strategy. While it’s often characterized as an aggressive deck, it actually plays more of a Midrange game a lot of the time, with plenty of removal and cards like Wrath of the Skies. It’s not hard at all to pivot from this to a full-on Control plan post-sideboard.
When you’re playing things this way, The Legend of Roku becomes a massive boon, for the card advantage alone. Players used to run Showdown of the Skalds in Boros sideboards for similar reasons, and The Legend of Roku blows it out of the water completely. Not only does it very nearly match the draw Showdown offers, but it also bundles in a win condition for good measure. When you’re playing a long game, it’s hard to imagine a card doing more for you than this one.
The Legend of Roku isn’t just a sideboard piece in Boros Energy, mind you. Some players, like SloppySanchez, have even started running it in their main decks. The numbers aren’t massive on this so far, but it does indicate that the card is slowly proving its value beyond the sideboard.
Turning Up The Heat
On top of its exciting role in Modern, The Legend of Roku is also seeing a good bit of love in MTG Standard. With Dimir Midrange still sitting at the top of the format, the ability to go long is vital. A number of aggressive red strategies have, in a similar vein to Boros Energy, adopted the card as a result.
In Mono-Red Aggro, for example, players like Omar Valencia have started bringing The Legend of Roku in out of the sideboard. The card draw on the front half is probably enough to justify this move alone, but the back half also has a surprising amount of synergy in the deck. You can spend the Firebending mana on various activated abilities, like those on Hired Claw or Burnout Bashtronaut. You can also use it to kick Burst Lightning to help close out the game.
The Legend of Roku’s best role in Standard so far, however, is undoubtedly in Boros Aggro. The card is seeing main deck play there, as an extra bit of Firebending synergy alongside Firebender Ascension. With Ascension maxed out, every swing with Roku or his Dragons will net you eight mana, which can then make you another Dragon immediately. This takes the card from inevitability engine to immediate threat, which is a scary promotion indeed.
With so many decks trying the card out already, the future is looking bright for The Legend of Roku in Standard. Unless Simic Aggro takes over the format in the coming weeks, it should have several homes for the foreseeable future.
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!