I think Boseiju, Who Endures is the best card we’ll see this year.
I know that sounds like a hot take, but I think it’s lukewarm at best. This card is insane and the layers of insanity on it are going to make it either the breakout card of the year or one of the best ones. Let’s break it down.
Layer 1: The Obvious
Boseiju is going straight into Lands and Loam and will make those decks far more reactive and proactive.
On the reactive and more intended side of use, this card answers problems like Blood Moon and Back to Basics in a mainboardable way. It can be fodder for a Crop Rotation, and sends itself to the yard to be recurred with Life from the Loam or can be simply milled over with Loam like a normal land.
The proactive side is leaning into how Lands sometimes previously played with the analogue card, Ghost Quarter. Lands used this effect to quickly tax the limited number of basic land slots most decks run. Once that number is exceeded, Ghost Quarter became a Strip Mine and allowed Lands to fully lock out most decks. While Boseiju, Who Endures is slower than Ghost Quarter when it comes to being a Strip Mine (since it allows opponents to get both duals and basics), it has other utility in the meantime and bypasses the one-land-per-turn limit as well as the limit of an Exploration. If Lands returns to running Ghost Quarter, it should be able to rapidly shoot down the opponent’s mana before mopping up the board and game.
How likely are you to get to the point of Strip Mine-ing with Boseiju? Discounting Jeskai Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer deck’s (Rest in Peace), the top ten decks according to MTGGoldfish play 6 (UR Delver), 5 (Elves!), 6 (Reanimator), 9 (UWR Control), 5 (Doomsday), 8 (Painter), 9 (4c Control), 18 (Taxes), 2 (8-Cast), and 4 (Lands) lands with basic types on average. Against Painter and Taxes, you’ll more likely use it for better targets (namely both decks’ artifact packages), while against a deck like 8-Cast or Delver, you are very, very rapidly going to be able to pressure their manabases with it, especially with any additional copies of Wasteland or Ghost Quarter.
Layer 2: The Likely
Dark Depths will also likely run this. Depths is not outside the realm of running Life from the Loam and would love to have more ways of dealing with Wasteland and Pithing Needle to clear the way. It, again, also removes problematic permanents like Blood Moon and Alpine Moon, while allowing Marit Lage to get through random stops like Glacial Chasm and Ensnaring Bridge.
In addition, 4c Piles are already playing green and splashing for Endurance and Life from the Loam for Wasteland locks. Endurance presents a great way to oppose counterplay like Surgical Extraction or similar effects. Chalice of the Void, one of the natural counters to greedy piles of one-drops, has also been on the decline since Prismatic Ending was printed. Now, two of the other good options for counterplay in Blood Moon and Back to Basics are hit by Boseiju, whose 1G cost is easier to fulfill than Prismatic Ending for 3. Boseiju also taps for mana in a pinch. Postboard it also hits Pithing Needle for any relevant planeswalkers, doubling coverage and insulating Needle on Boseiju from completely shutting down your removal. This entire statement can be extended to pure Bant Control as well.
Layer 3: The Less Certain
One of the cards that operates well against this new mana-denial effect is Stifle. However, it’s also a card that has potential as a pair with Boseiju, Who Endures, especially if you start adding in effects like Wasteland. RUG Delver was, for years, the mana denial deck. With pure UR taking a small hit with the recent banning of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, RUG could step up and use this new effect as another piece of the mana denial pie.
Going along with this, one of the cards I could see enabling Boseiju is Elvish Reclaimer. It fits a lot of the Delver criteria in that it’s an aggressive one-drop threat that scales well. It can also find and then bin a Boseiju Who Endures all on its own and benefits from a stocked graveyard full of lands. Murktide Regent also benefits from a big graveyard and remains an excellent way to close games. RUG can play Expressive Iteration and Lightning Bolt just as well as UR can, and Force of Will remains strong while Daze just gets better and better with less and less mana. It’s also a great reason to go green that UR cannot simply steal. The below list was thrown together super quickly and is not optimal, but should get the general idea across.
Layer 4: The Theorycraft and Scraps
I’m no Storm expert, but in terms of removing problematic single cards, Boseiju, Who Endures seems like the bee’s knees. Nearly uncounterable at two mana and notably not a spell, letting you lead with Silence if you expect a counter and hitting every CMC all at once for two mana, one generic, this card seems poised to be able to replace all the currently played single-target removal in TES. Even if UWx has a Deafening Silence or Ethersworn Canonist out, you can simply Silence them first and then blow up the hate piece. They then have to be able to find exactly countermagic into Stifle. Otherwise you go off.
While Boseiju is excellent against Cloudpost, it is also the kind of card they will play. Again, the recipe is all here, where it taps for green mana in a pinch and hits all sorts of problems.
NicFit plays anything, but it will surely show up in those lists as well. Some do Life from the Loam anyway, and this helps those proportionally more.
Finally, a shout out to Aluren, whose recent switch towards Living Wish is going to pay in spades since Boseiju gives them another amazing sideboard slot to answer a ton of problems.
Layer 5: Modern
I’m in no way, shape, or form a Modern expert, but I will quickly point out that Boseiju also slots into decks there, particularly in NeoJund with Wrenn and Six. Wrenn getting to combine land-taxing effects with its low to the ground pinging removal is what got it banned from Legacy. I could see this being the beginning of the end for Wrenn in Modern with this new effect. Modern has a higher than average number of lands without basic types; think lands like Blackcleave Cliffs, Spirebluff Canal, Cavern of Souls, Tron lands, and Sunbaked Canyon. This will put pressure on those decks to either start playing suboptimal manabases to get around Boseiju, Who Endures or end up being very weak to it. If Ponza or NeoJund start slapping in Life from the Loam and Ghost Quarter, we might see something close to the Legacy Lands strategy of denying resources until an inevitable endgame comes true.
Modern also lacks meaningful interaction, especially mainboard. You cannot Stifle Boseiju outside Tale’s End or Trickbind (and 2 cmc Stifles are bad). The main counterplay postboard, Surgical Extraction, also loses value to Endurance, a card that’s reasonable to mainboard anyway. If they Pithing Needle Boseiju, Who Endures, they’re not stopping your other threats (like Wrenn and Six), putting them in zugzwang.
Layer 6: Pioneer
In Pioneer, Boseiju, Who Endures becomes more of a sideboard staple in the main deck than a main-deck super threat. But again, even as a reactive staple, this card is insanely flexible. If your opponent is attempting to play manlands, like Phoenix or Burn do, you can trade them off for a regular land in combat. They Alpine Mooned you? Have a land. They Chain to the Rocks-ed a key piece of your deck? Have a different Mountain, please. Lotus Field attempting to either land a Blast Zone or use Thespian’s Stage to get another Field? Get something less threatening please. Cat-Oven becomes Cat-Extra Land and loses consistent access to Trail of Crumbs. Winota, Joiner of Forces can’t be joined by a crewed Esika’s Chariot. Sideboard Grafdigger’s Cage is chump change mana now. On and on.
Layer 7: Standard
One of the interesting things about working in an LGS right now is that I can tell you there are about 40 lands worth $2+ after tax and shipping being played to various degrees in Standard currently.
Of those, some are the MDFC lands, which aren’t always lands. But plenty of others, particularly the Pathways, Snarls, AFR Manlands, and the slowlands are all potential targets. Forcing some decks to choose mana early in the game could be quite useful in limiting their ability to properly develop into the midgame. Even outside of that, this becomes a mainboard answer to Esika’s Chariot, Ranger Class, Paladin Class, Meathook Massacre’s drain and gain, the various current and incoming Sagas, and the incoming Vehicles, Augments, Equipment, and other random artifacts.
As we look forward into the future of Standard, we can also see the looming set, The Brothers’ War. Presumably occurring during the namesake second invasion of Dominaria by Phyrexia, this is slated to be another artifact-heavy set. Boseiju, Who Endures could be a critical staple here, as it mitigates some powerful artifacts from overtaking the format. Given the reputation for artifact blocks being insanely broken, this may be one very significant pre-printed piece of hate to shift the paradigm.
Wrap
Boseiju, Who Endures is just simply insane. The card is powerful on the face of it, but I cannot stress how impactful this card will be. You will have to get used to this card. You will have to get used to playing against this card. You will have to get used to building manabases with this card in mind. You will have to get used to building with this card in mind for any green deck. You will have to get used to guessing if they have it, or playing around them trying to get to it.
Boseiju, Who Endures is the best card we’ll see this year.
